The plan was to leave our home on Christmas morning, hopefully by 10:00. We cleaned most of our Christmas Eve dinner dishes just after our guests left and organized things for packing so we could shower, stow everything in our trunk, and hit the road as early as possible. One of the boons of taking a road trip rather than travel by plane or train is the luxury of packing things at the last minute and not be limited to one suitcase and one carry-on.

In anticipation of not using our kitchen sink for a while, John did a quick calking job before we slipped out and locked the back door. We had cookies, sandwiches and water in a cooler on the back seat, an assortment of CDs, and a small first aid kit (an unexpected brown elephant gift from a Hanukah party a week earlier). We pulled out of our garage at 9:50 to a very light flurry.

“What the f___,” John exhaled, more surprised than angry. “I checked the weather report last night and it was not supposed to snow.”

I sort of liked this paper weight cum sno-globe look for the city, an appropriate parting image for heading south, but I was grateful to be the passenger as we launched our trip. The beauty of freshly falling snow is more easily observed when not driving in it. Fortunately, thirty minutes after we passed the Loop and got on I-57 heading for Memphis, the first stop on our New Orleans 2012 Christmas adventure, the white dust got lighter and lighter, then disappeared altogether.

New Orleans is just over nine hundred miles from Chicago. We planned to stay the night in Memphis on the way down there and stop in St. Louis on the way back, arriving back on Whipple Street News Year’s Eve day, hours before rookie revelers would take to the streets.

We got gas somewhere in southern Illinois and I took the wheel for a while frequently turning on the radio for news and weather updates. We quietly chuckled to ourselves at our good fortune. It seemed that much of the country was looking at a white Christmas. As we zigzagged across Illinois, Missouri and parts of Arkansas on the way to Memphis, we seemed to be just ahead of the weather front and we were making good time.

John took over driving duties again just as dusk crept over the highway. I was happy to relinquish the wheel and smiled even more when Mother Nature started to shower us with a little snow and rain. Somehow John always ended up with driving stints that required more concentration. When we got to downtown Memphis, the streets were deserted. Understandably, Christmas Day was a time most people spent at home with family, but I think the precipitation kept even more people than usual indoors. As a typical southern town, the folks of Memphis freak out in snow. We had a nice meal at a hotel close to ours then returned to our hotel and called it a night.

The next morning, the streets were still under the cover of snow and very few people were out and about. We decided to walk down Beale Street before getting back on the road. A touristy strip of blues clubs, bail bondsmen’s offices and no-frills grills whose signs boasted world famous Bar-B-Q, it was obvious the snow would be keeping patrons away for most of the day. We snapped a few pictures – in front of pawnshop windows, near the Gibson guitar factory, and around various clubs. Snow definitely did not belong in this street scene, and I appreciated the incongruity.

Nature is so wonderfully humbling. It’s easy to get obsessed with plans then be reminded that they’re subject to change based on the weather. Everything we do in our lives is subject to change, but it’s easy to react to unplanned situations as wrong instead of simply surprising.

Being humbled by snow on Beale Street is no small thing.