Chapter Four - Utah Snow and Highway Patrol

This weekend was a weekend to remember, let me tell you.  I had to make a trip to Utah because my sister was in need of some help on Saturday.  Every so often, I get the chance to drive to Utah and hang out in the "big city."  It's so nice to have Salt Lake only 2 hours away because after spending a few days in the hussel and bussel of the city, you can always go back to Rock Springs and relax.  So, in short, I usually love driving to good old Utah.  However.....

This trip was quite different.  I was going down with a friend of mine, Kaylie Crowley.  She had a rehearsal for Westerns next musical, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  Her rehearsal ended at about 10pm on Friday night and we left for Utah at about 10:30pm.  We had heard that there was going to be some bad roads ahead and so we were kind of scared to drive through it, especially at night.  However, we decided to go away...

Everything was peachy and there was no bad weather for a very long time.  Then, out of the blue, the storm came out of nowhere.  Just before Evanston, the roads started to become slick and the snow started to fall and blow around us.  We couldn't decided weather or not to pull off the highway and wait or just keep going.  We figured that we'd better keep going just so we don't get stuck somewhere.

So...  As Kaylie and I crawled along the highway at about 20 MPH in my poor little white Buick, we began to get even more nervous than before.  We had been driving for hours and hours it seemed and due to the heavy fog and snow, we didn't know quite where we were.  After about 3 hours of driving, we did know that we were in the canyon that eventually opens into the Salt Lake Valley.  As you can guess, that canyon has a large downhill slope for the last few miles until it opens into the valley.  We started out decent into the last bit of the canyon and the tires on my poor car could not grip the road.  We started to slide and the fish-tale.  We did a complete 180 degree turn on I-80 and bummed into the median.  Lucky, there was a service vehicle behind us that helped us to report the accident and get us on the road again.  It sure was a night to remember.

I guess that the entire point of my story is this, if you ever drive to Utah in a snow storm and you bump you car into the median, the Utah Highway Patrol Officers are very nice and friendly!!!

Well, that is about it for now!!  Stay tuned for more!!