Home again

We're back in Utah...finally off the road and very happy to be alive. Friday we saw on the news that a huge storm was in California and that it was expected to hit our route home by the next day. So, we packed in a rush and got on the road, hoping to stay ahead of the storm. We made it to Glendale by 11:00 p.m. and stopped at Aunt Audrey and Uncle Terry's place for the night. Our car got stuck in the snow there which made Saturday morning an interesting experience trying to get it out. After a lot of pushing, some thorny bushes in my arm, and some missing skin from my palms, we got the car out.

The trip home from Glendale is typically a mere 3.5-4 hours. However, we expected a lot of snow up ahead so we budgeted 5 hours just to be safe. After an hour or so we made it past the snow-plastered mountains and we were on clean, perfectly clear roads for over 2 hours. I set the cruise control for 80 (the speed limit was 75).

After 2+ hours of driving on clean roads I noticed a little snow on the side of the road (it was not snowing, however) and I pointed it out to Rachel and tapped my break to turn off the cruise control. We coasted for a few seconds and then we suddenly ran into slush on the road. We didn't even see it until we hit it (again, it still wasn't snowing). We were moving about 75 MPH when we hydroplaned and the car started sliding off the road. I tried not to make any sudden movements with the wheel and I rested my foot on the break without applying any pressure, hoping to regain control. In a flash the car felt like it was sucked off the road. I said, "Oh ****, we're going off." We were headed for a pole on the side of the street and I finally turned my wheel to avoid it, causing us to turn around and start sliding backwards. I slammed on the breaks as a flood of mud flew up over top and alongside the car. When we finally stopped we had turned around and we were facing the right direction again (not sure how this happened, it was all a blur). The car was on such an angle that we're not sure how it didn't tip over. We were both counting our blessings to be alive, and to have no apparent damage to the vehicle or ourselves. As most of the stopping had happened while we were turned around backwards, there wasn't even any jarring of our bodies because the breaking was just pushing us deeper into the comfortable seats. It would have been a fun ride had we not been facing almost certain death.

I got out of the car to inspect our tracks and we had come within inches of hitting the pole. We were buried in mud. It started snowing before I could make it to the top of the hill we had slid down. I started waving cars down for help. Five minutes later two cars finally decided to pull over. Miraculously one of their cell phones had coverage (ours didn't). He called 911 and then left while Rachel and I waited in the other car that had pulled over. About 45 minutes later a highway patrolman pulled up. He looked at the car, called a tow truck for us, then had us climb into his car where we waited another solid 45 minutes for the tow truck to come. Before leaving, the officer gave me a ticket for "failure to stay in my own lane." I couldn't believe it. Had we just called a tow truck instead of the police we would have saved ourselves nearly an hour of waiting and a ticket. Note to self: police are the last people to call.

The tow truck operator, in addition to several other mistakes, accidentally pulled our car up all the way onto the freeway, where cars had to swerve to avoid it. He said, "Whoops, I thought it was in park." We were fearing for our lives and for our car. We had been there for 2 hours at this point and it was snowing so hard that all evidence of our having slid of the road and skid to a halt in the mud was completely covered. We were afraid another car was going to swerve trying to avoid our car and end up losing control and slamming into us.

We finally got on the road and started following the tow truck 15 miles to Nephi where we'd get to pay him $260. Along the way, the car started shaking really badly at about 45 MPH, almost like a tire was wobbling. We ended up driving the rest of the way to Nephi, and eventually, home, at 40 MPH.

We were both starting to feel better about life at about the University Parkway exit in Orem when we heard what sounded like a helicopter as the car started shaking violently. I pulled over and we smelt burning rubber. I checked the tires and found the rear-passenger tire ripped to shreds. When Rachel saw it we both chuckled and I got the jack to fix it. About 10 minutes later a cop pulled up behind us to come help. While she was there, we took the opportunity and asked if it was common practice to ticket people for sliding off the road. She said it was, and that they did it in order to "Deter people from sliding off the road." "Well it works," I said, "had I known I was going to get a ticket for sliding off the road, I would never have done it." She laughed and said since we had already gotten one ticket today she wouldn't give us another. Turns out she wasn't joking. She said that they can write tickets for having a blown tire too. What's more, she's given a number of tickets lately to people for running out of gas. Running out of gas is almost understandable...but honestly...a blown tire? How in the heck am I supposed to get around that? I didn't want my tire to have a blow-out. I put a new tire on just a couple of weeks ago....sigh.

Anyhow, we finally made it home. We're very happy to NOT be on the road and I dare say it'll be a long time before we make a road trip in the Winter (at least a year).