I HATE Wyoming...and other such tales part 1

Let me begin my post by saying I HATE Wyoming. I LOATHE Wyoming, and I will always have bitter, unhappy, horrible thoughts of Wyoming. No offense Ginger.I am sure the part of Wyoming you are from is much more desireable and much less a part of the State of the Devil than the part I drove through. What part are you from again? Anyway...now on to the story.

We left our humble abode around 5 p.m. Thursday evening to drive to Idaho for my grandpa's funeral.I was a bit tired from my day of preparations, and since Tony needed to be on his laptop doing some work, I had to drive. I did something I don't normally do. I purchased mysef a caffeineated beverage to perk me up a bit. Since I am unfamiliar with the caffeineated beverage world, I opted for a drink that sounded like it would have a fun flavor to it. I got a diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper. Not very good. I really and truly think that caffeineated soft drinks have WAY more carbonation in them than normal sodas. I couldn't taste a thing for all the bubbles. I know why I am not a pop drinker.Anyway...about 2 hours after starting my beverage, I had to go to the bathroom soooooo bad I couldn't stand it! (please excuse my potty talk)I was really and truly so close to wetting my pants, and you better believe my relief when a rest stop was spotted! After this initial situation,traveling was fine,the weather was fine, the roads were fine, but around 11 p.m. MST, we had become weary, and stopped in a lovely Nebraska town called Ogalalla for the night.

After a not so great night of sleep, due to the children, we were on the road again by 7 a.m. I didn't learn my lesson the first time, and decided I needed some assistance in the alert department again, and purchased another caffeineated beverage. I remember my friend Christy talking about her beverage of choice being Wild Cherry Pepsi. I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Absolutely nothing! It was horrible! I couldn't even drink it all. I am sorry to all of you devoted fans out there, but I do not get it.It was blech! And I still had to stop frequently for potty breaks!Traveling was decent, the weather was decent with the exception being the wind. I think I saw at least 4 or 5 truck trailors that had blown over on the side of the road. Scary! Along with the wind, came snow blowing across the road as well, which did make it slower going than normal, but altogether not too horrible.

We pulled off the road at a rest stop just a short ways outside of Rawlins. When we pulled off, we noticed a semi had jack-knifed right across the on ramp back to I-80. What???? How on earth were we supposed to get back on the freeway? Well, we took turns running like mad through the wind to use the restrooms, and when it was my turn, I met a lady who was from Cedar City, and we were talking when a man came into the building. He informed us that I-80 was closed from Rawlins all the way to the Utah state line. Oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no! How on earth was I supposed to get to Idaho now, and what were we going to do? Were we going to have to hang out at this rest stop until the road opened again? Who knew how long that would be? I ran back to the car and informed Tony of the latest development. We did have his laptop, but couldn't get a signal to get online, so we called Tony's dad and he called us back later after he had looked at some possible options. In the end, we decided to take a detour, and head off from Rawlins on 287 up to Muddy Gap, then over almost to Lander, where we cut off on 28 down through South Pass and Farson.

It was windy and the snow would blow across the road in patches, but traveling went well. I was calling my brother Scott in Idaho back and forth when my cell phone had service to let him know how things were going, and get updated info from him about our route. When we first turned onto 28 to start heading back down, my brother informed me that 30, which was the route we were supposed to be heading for to take us into Idaho, was closed. Arrghh! We were going to have to head BACK down to I-80 since they had re-opened some of it, and head through Evanston into Utah, and THEN back up I-15 to Idaho! Are you kidding me???? He told me to call a number when I got to Farson to talk to a person who could tell me about the road closures, etc. We kept on trucking. At several points on 28, the snow was blowing so much across the road and all around, that I felt as if we were driving through the clouds! If I wasn't scared out of my mind, I would have liked to stop and take a picture. That is if we could see the road to pull over on. I certainly didn't want to end up off the road in this blasted state!

I really gained an intense appreciation for what the pioneers went through, since we were awfully close to Martin's Cove, and we drove through South Pass where the wagon trains crossed. I can only imagine their horrified thoughts about where they were, and why on earth they were there! I certainly felt that way and I was in a well-heated, comfortable mini van with lots of food and water, blankets, pillows, a cell phone (ok, no coverage), a laptop (again, no coverage), a DVD player, an Mp3 player, and plenty of magazines to keep me entertained. I cannot for the life of me imagine being outside walking in that horrid wind and snow, in freezing temperatures with the land having nothing to shelter them from it.It makes it even worse to imagine trying to protect my children from that as well! I was scared to death of sliding, being blown, or simply running off the road and being stuck in my well heated, comfortable mini van with lots of food and water (see above)with my children and not knowing the outcome.I would have probably had to wait a few hours for help. How long did the pioneers have to wait for help? Weeks? I can't even begin to comprehend!

Anyway...we finally made it to Farson where I called the number my brother gave me. The lady told me that 30 was open, and I-80 was now open in both directions again. Nice! So, from here I took over the driving. I continued down 28, and things seemed to go fairly well, with the occasional patch of blowing snow, but so far so good. It was after I had turned onto 372 heading towards 189, that things got bad. They got very, very bad.I drove into a big black wall of clouds, and with the blowing snow, and the darkness all around me, I could barely see a few feet in front of me, and I was scared out of my mind! I was seriously so terrified! I kept praying and praying that the road would at least clear enough for me to see where I was going. I could handle that. I could really handle any of it, as long as I had breaks in the wind, and had the road be clear for me to keep going.By the time I came to the intersection of 189 where we were to turn to head down to Kemmerer where we would hit 30, the weather had cleared a bit, and Tony got out to switch with me. As soon as I sat down in the passenger seat, I was shaking pretty bad, and felt the urge to throw up, pass out, and cry all at once. It took a while for my pulse to slow back down, and for me to feel calm again. Tony had some yuck to drive in too, but it didn't seem as bad as what I had driven through.I was very surprised they had reopened that road.

These pictures are some I got off the internet, since I was too terrified to let go of the "oh shoot" handle to climb in the back of the van to get my camera. These are pretty darn close to what it looked like for most of our driving on Friday afternoon. The one picture of the landscape without the road was even better than what I experienced.Meaning better conditions. I couldn't even see the land at all under the billowing, blowing clouds...I mean snow.








The rest of the drive went a lot smoother. We did get some snow once we got into Idaho and went through Montpelier and Soda Springs, but once we hit I-15, it was a breeze! We were anticipating getting there around 6-ish, and ended up getting there after 9! The viewing was supposed to be at 7 p.m., but it ended up being cancelled due to the roads around the church building. I guess I lucked out that I didn't miss that!

Needless to day that after being in the car for over 13 hours in not ideal conditons, we were exhausted when we got there, and went straight to my brother Scott's house instead of driving the extra 45 minutes to my sister's house. We just couldn't stand being in the car any longer! It was pretty funny. When we first got to the outskirts of Idaho Falls, we saw a billboard that said something like this:

Idaho Falls

You made it! Wasn't it worth the wait?

And there were pictures of people jumping in the air. It was hilarious!But I sure felt that way after our trip!