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On Christmas, Michael and Cecilia Baldwin and their two children made quick work of their morning gift exchange. After all, the weather had turned bad, and the family had about a three-hour drive from their home in Spaulding, Neb., to Sioux City, Iowa, where they planned to visit relatives.
"We thought we could beat the storm," Michael said. "That didn't happen."
Instead, the family's Chrysler Town & Country minivan got high-centered in a snowdrift about 35 miles from their home.
They would spend about 20 hours waiting for rescuers. Fortunately, the van's gas tank was full which allowed them to run the motor and heater.
Baldwin said the family remained comfortable and entertained itself with books and video games. They snacked on Christmas cookies and candy and drank melted snow and soda. In the van were the couple's daughters, Sadie, 3, and Amelia, 1, and the family dog, a lab-Husky mix.
"There wasn't much we could do, we couldn't push ourselves out," he said.
Baldwin said he got out periodically to make sure that the tailpipe wasn't clogged with snow. And the family kept the windows cracked. Both are necessary to avoid succumbing to carbon monoxide fumes.
The family was stranded from about 10 a.m. on Christmas until about 7:30 a.m. the next day, he said. They remained in touch with emergency workers. They weren't entirely alone. A semi got stuck behind them because there wasn't room to drive around the snowbound van on the two-lane Nebraska Highway 91.
Baldwin said he and his wife, who is pregnant, wouldn't have headed to Sioux City if they'd known conditions were as bad as they were. He said they called the 511 road condition hot line and didn't hear anything bad enough to discourage them from driving.
As his wife drove the van behind the snowplows the next day, she described a scene of one impassible drift after another. "She said if we'd made it past the one we were stuck in, we would have never made it past the others. Some were taller than our van."
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