Victory!

Well, I didn't get blocked out of California, I narrowly escaped Utah!

I woke up early Thursday morning after packing the night before and checking road conditions about every 15 minutes. In the morning we thought that maybe we should just wait it out and leave for home Friday morning instead, but we got some information that the 15 south was going to open at noon and a burst of adventurousness went through me and we decided to go for it!

I picked up the girls I was driving and we finally headed out of Provo around 11:15. It was no longer snowing at our destination, but it was snowing in Provo at that time. I scraped a good 5 or 6 inches of snow and ice off of my entire car and traversed the dangerous roads. It was my first encounter with driving on snow and going over ice. There was a few times when I kind of freaked out, but Adrienne helped calm me and I managed it well.

The freeway was pretty clear for the majority of our trip, but the slushy dirty snow on the road kept covering my car and making my windshield nearly impossible to see through. That, with the combination of ice blocking my windshield wiper fluid, caused a little distress, but nothing water spray from driving behind huge semi-trucks couldn't fix. They sprayed my car and then I could use my wipers to clear it off, thankfully.

We did hit some traffic after crossing State Line, which made us go pretty slow for a while, then the pointless agricultural checkpoint made us go about 15 MPH for an hour, until they just waved us past them and I sped out of there to finally be free from semi-trucks and get HOME. We hit another little snag when nearing the 138, but this time we were only stopped for 15 minutes. They only plowed one lane of the 138, so it took us a good 45 minutes to an hour to finally get to Palmdale. It was pretty late at night- Oh man was I glad to be home!

I finally got to see Cody, who arrived home from his mission on the 9th and to enjoy the company of family and friends :)

It has been nice to sleep in a comfy bed, do my laundry for free, and be with those I love.