M-town Trip - Epic Road Trip Adventure!!!

Last weekend we had the opportunity to head down to Monticello to visit my sister and her family. As we were preparing our things and getting all packed up, I got a phone call from my sister. This is how the conversation went (not exactly, of course):

Kim: It's snowing like crazy and the wind is blowing like mad and I think it would be wise to just stay home.

DeAnn (looking out the window at our clear skies and clear roads here in Ogden): Naw, I think we'll be fine, really! It's can't be THAT bad, can it? We'll take the Subaru in case it snows and we'll be just fine.

Kim: Well just so you know how bad it is, they cancelled school for today and tomorrow and the drifts are pretty deep. I really advise you not to come.

DeAnn: Well, we really want to come, so I think we're going to!

Kim: Well okay, just make sure you call me back and leave a message on my phone saying it's not my fault when you guys die so our family doesn't blame me!

DeAnn: ha ha ha! It can't be that bad!

But.....

Dun dun dun........ it really was!!!!

Here's the story of our epic extreme winter driving adventure. Just a warning, it's long and detailed, so sorry! So, we leave around 3 in the afternoon and for the first 4 1/2 hours, the roads were great! Some little flurries and a small portion of the trip driving on partially snow covered roads. Not bad.......

We filled up in Moab and called Kim to let her know we'd be there in an hour. As we headed out of Moab, there's this electronic road sign that says: "Extreme Winter Driving - Travel NOT ADVISED!" At this time, it was raining a little and we just laughed at the sign. As we drove on, it began to snow lightly - no problem. As we get about 15 minutes into our drive, I see flashing lights ahead. I think to myself, "Was I really going that fast?" and then as we got closer, I could see that the police was blocking the road, meaning the road was closed. Bummer. The road was closed right at the turnoff to go to a city called La Sal. So we turned into a little parking lot there to wait a little while to see if they'd let up on the road closure. There was no cell phone service so we couldn't call anyone to let them know. So to entertain ourselves, we started watching The Emperor's New Groove. I was getting a little antsy and thought to myself, "Self, I bet there's a way around this road blockage!" So I had Cortney hand me the Utah road map from inside the glove box. As we looked, we saw a "local road" that wrapped around from the road to La Sal right back to the main road we wanted to be on. SO, we thought about it, talked about it, and decided to try it.

There wasn't a label on the road on the map, so we just guessed which road it was we needed to take. As we got closer to turning off onto this road it started snowing a little heavier. "This ain't that bad," I thought to myself. As we started on this road, there was one set of tracks in the snow from a car that had traveled on the road. The visibility was still good, so I stayed on my side of the road, using the tracks of the car to help guide my way. As we continued driving, the snow flurries got worse and worse and as we were driving, it felt like we were going into warp speed because of the way the snow was falling. I stopped a few times to let me eyes rest. As we followed the road, we came to a fork where the other car tracks had turned off....

We decided to keep going on the same road we were on and promised each other that if we started feeling wrong about where we were going that we would turn around. Well, we kept going and kept going and kept going and there was still no sign of....a sign or anything that would lead us to believe we were headed to the main road. I told myself, "Self, if we don't hit the main road in 15 minutes, we're turning around and staying the night in Moab." About 2 minutes later, we reached a stop sign. Hooray!

We turned onto this road and I, still being skeptical to whether or not it really was the main road, just kept driving. When I saw the sign for the turnoff to Canyonlands, I knew we were on the right road! We laughed because on this road there was a sign just like this one.......ha ha ha!

There were maybe 3 or 4 cars that passed us coming the other way, but we didn't see any other cars after that. The visibility kept getting worse and worse. Luckily for us, we had brought the Subaru which does AWESOME in the snow! We made it up a huge hill (passing parked cars that earlier had failed in the attempt at making it to the top) driving in the middle of the road because the visibility was so bad.

After we made it to the top of the hill, we couldn't really tell where the road was because of the visibility. To solve this, we used the reflectors on each side of the road to help us stay in the middle of the road. At this point, both Cortney and I agreed that this was possibly the dumbest thing we could've done. The reason we did it? Well, for me, I am stubborn. I wanted to get there so bad, and I was going to get there!

After a few miles of following the reflectors (which seemed like ages), we saw in the distance a snowplow coming and plowing the other side of the road. After he passed, we were able to follow in his tracks until we arrived in Monticello. As we got into town, we passed the road block from the other side. There were a few policemen outside of their cars and as we passed, they just looked at us like, "How'd you guys get through?!?" or "Where did you guys come from" - you know the look.

We were SOOOOO glad that we made it! Man, that trip was exhausting! We are now Winter Driving Extremists. We decided that from now on if a road is closed, that it is closed for a reason and not to try and weasel around it! Luckily for us, the drive home was a breeze with no extreme winter conditions :) And yes, we made it home safe and sound (to our house with a temperature of 50 degrees; our furnace had broken while we were gone) !

Overall the trip to Monticello was a lot of fun! We just hung out at the house for a couple days (we were snowed in). Cortney was able to set up Kim's computer and their Wii. We enjoyed playing the Wii sports with the kids. On Saturday we headed to Cortez to pick up a few things for the computer and other needed items. It was great to be able to spend some time with the T fam! Here are some epic pics from the trip.......

We tried to get out of the driveway, but instead we got stuck. It was that deep.....

K


If you'll look closely, you'll see my 12-year old nephew, G driving the car....ha ha ha!

K and G

Cortney, K, and I on the way to Cortez (Kim was in a store)


Epic sunset picture taken on the way home....