We left our house in Nampa at 6:30am on Tuesday morning and started the usually 5 1/2 hour drive to Salt Lake. We got drove onto the junction I-86 from Idaho to Utah at noon. Yes, it took us five hours just to get there because it was snowing like mad, and the roads were coated. We've always said that it is better to get there late than never to get there at all, so we really didn't get much over 35-40mph.
Right after we got onto the junction the wind picked up like MAD!!!! Eric got behind a semi and just said, "I'm staying behind him 'cause I can't see the road."
It amazed us how many people were still driving SO fast, not being able to see the road, and with how slick it was and the snow and everything, it was crazy how fast everyone was driving.
About five miles past the junction, the semi in front of us stopped so we stopped too. A huge triple trailer semi swung past us into the left hand lane and sped by, but we could see he was trying to stop. Then a red Tacoma flew by and almost hit the semi and swung out into the center median to miss him, followed by a gold minivan. For what seemed like ten minutes Eric and I both thought we were going to end up in an accident. People just weren't watching, and they kept speeding, and all of a sudden a car would appear out of nowhere, and they would have to swerve off into the road to miss. And we were right in the middle of everyone swerving.
Then when people finally stopped flying around, we sat.
And sat.
AND SAT.
We did not move for HOURS. LITERALLY!
The wind was blowing 65mph, and we were watching whole semis blowing over. Our windshield wipers froze to the windshield. We could barely see the semi in front of us between all the snow and wind. It was CRAZY.
We got the kids out of their seats and started letting them play around. We looked through all the food in our car and decided we could easily sleep in it for 24 hours-ish and have enough food for the kids if they got hungry.
We got the kids out of their seats and started letting them play around. We looked through all the food in our car and decided we could easily sleep in it for 24 hours-ish and have enough food for the kids if they got hungry.
Police came and walked to every car and told us to move as far the the right of the road as possible so they could get a snow plow through. This was difficult as the drifts that had built up next to our car were almost three feet tall.
At 4:00pm, we finally started moving. They had us drive a few miles up to the next overpass and then swung as back around and sent us back to Burley. Denny, Kellie, Grammy Rita, and our family checked into a hotel in Burley and then went to dinner.
We got up Wednesday morning, ate some breakfast - ran into the Geddes's, a family from our ward that was also heading to Salt Lake - and hit the road at 9:30am. We FINALLY got to Eric's sister Katie's house in Pleasant Grove, UT at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon. So in reality, we spent 33 hours driving to Salt Lake, a drive that usually takes 5 1/2. It was crazy!
The weather was calm most of the time we were in Utah, and the OF COURSE on Sunday when we were driving back home to Nampa, we woke up to a foot of snow in Utah. Our drive home was about as long. We drove up through Pocatello to come home. Left at 9:30am and drove into our driveway at 7:30 that night.
All in all, the kids were pretty great. They did well in the car, and we have a LIFETIME of memories of that trip.
Needless to say, I doubt we will drive in the snow, on highways that end up getting closed, for Thanksgiving anymore . . . . even for Katie!
NOTE: You can't see out the windows of our car very well.
We got stuck in Colorado because of the blizzard. We drove into Wyoming and turned around because we wanted to avoid all that! Looks like it was quite an adventure!
ReplyDeleteI read that in your blog and thought it was probably the same storm. I wish we could have just stayed in Utah to avoid the whole thing too!
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