As we headed toward Kansas City however, the effects of the day's storm were evident. Deep snow lined the roads, and the median was littered with abandoned cars that had slid off during the day. Snow was still coming down, and of course our wipers wouldn't work (come to find out, they were just frozen over in spite of the special winter wiper fluid). We met our goal of a 5 hour drive, but not nearly the distance we were hoping for because of the weather. We stayed the night in a cheap motel somewhere in Kansas. Eli was intrigued about the idea of a motel, and kept saying "the motel is NOT grandma's house!"
The next day's weather was a little clearer, but the wind was blowing and every few seconds the view of the road would be obliterated by blowing snow, then reappear. Beautiful, distracting, and freaky all at the same time. Kansas is NOT my favorite state to drive through though, and in winter it's even worse. Nothing but FLAT and white as far as the eye could see... except for a few snow covered hay bales here and there. We ended up getting stuck for a few hours just before we reached Colorado - the entire I-70 had been shut down because of ice and wind. We thought about heading north into Nebraska and completing the drive along the I-80, but found out through a series of phone calls that it was also closed. So we sat. And thought about getting a motel. And just as we picked a place to stay and Brad went in to get a room, they told us that the highway was opening up. Thank goodness! It was actually pretty smooth sailing as far as weather goes the rest of the way into Denver.
From Denver we headed north into Wyoming and hooked up with the I-80. We were still hoping that we could make it all the way, but our little Owen who had really been a trooper up to this point just couldn't take it ANYMORE. When bedtime came, he just wanted OUT of the carseat!!! No singing, hand holding, or me trying to squeeze in our tiny backseat to be near him would help. Unluckily, we were in the middle of nowhere when the crying spell hit, so it went on for over an hour before we found some podunk place to stop... Wamsutter, WY is NOT a place I recommend staying!
We pulled into this scary little motel around 1am... when Brad knocked on the door, a wild looking lady with long, flowing gray hair came running out of a back room in her night gown. I was half expecting her to grab a shotgun from a closet somewhere before answering the door. After Brad checked us in, he came out and told me "she was cranky." It got even worse after we checked out our room... it REEKED of smoke and included some nice cigarette burns all over the furniture. Poor Brad had to go back and talk to the scary lady again... luckily she had a non-smoking room available. And the lack of smoke smell is pretty much the only good thing I can say about the place. We didn't let the kids walk on the floor without shoes if that says anything! We just grabbed about 4 hours of shuteye and hit the road again as fast as we could! Thankfully Owen was able to consider going back to sleep at this time of morning as a "nap" instead of bedtime, and was more cooperative about it.
We had a little less than four hours to drive on that third day, and were exhausted, dirty, and very relieved to finally make it to Morgan! I laid down with Owen and slept right through church... Eli went with Brad and the family, but took a nap in Sacrament Meeting. Out of all of us, he had gotten the most sleep because unlike Owen, he falls asleep in the car at bedtime without a problem, and miraculously wasn't awakened by all of Owen's screaming in the night!
1 comment:
Woah, what an adventure! The boys look so cosy in the pictures. I'm glad you made it. Eventually.
Post a Comment