We really are crazy!

Last weekend, we had plans to go down to Utah so I could go to the Utah Dental Convention and visit with family as well. On Wednesday the 13th, we planned to leave Douglas and get as far as we could. I had a long 3 days at work and we were not ready to go early, so it was about 9:00 PM before we were ready to go. I had checked the road conditions before we left and they seemed to be ok, so we decided to head out after everything was done.

It was about 9:30 PM by the time that we left, and we got on the road. Between Douglas and Casper, we had some snow, but the road was drivable. On the other side of Casper, it started to snow and blow a little more. Kristy had been driving and I was considering going back, but felt that we should keep going. The weather seemed to just keep getting worse the farther we went on. The snow would blow more and the visibility became less and less. About the time we got to Muddy Gap Junction, I would say that we were driving between 10-20 MPH and could barely see. I finally had to pull over about 12:00 AM since I just could not see anymore. Several other vehicles did the same and we just waited. By this time, the three girls were awake as were Jacob and Kaleb. I didn't know how long we would have to wait, so I would turn the van off for a few minutes until it got too cold and turned it on again. We would wait about 10 minutes and then move so we would not get snowed in. After about 45 minutes of waiting, an emergency vehicle showed up and led the way to Rawlins. We again drove between 10-25 MPH. As you can imagine, this made for a 6 hour drive to Rawlins instead of 3. Well, to make a long story a little shorter, I-80 west was closed when we got to Rawlins, so we stayed at the Travelodge for the night.

I-80 West was closed until about 4:10 PM on Valentine's Day, so we stayed at Mcdonalds letting the kids play. Once it opened, we decided to go and ended up in Centerville at about 12:30 AM. As you can imagine, this made for a very long drive and we were exhausted. We did have a wonderful time with family and I will tell you more about that in another post.

I just count my blessings that we were watched over and able to arrive without any harm done. As you can tell, we really were crazy to brave the storm at night with 5 kids in the car.