Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Driving to Oregon...in a BLIZZARD!!!

Just a quick note here about our little trip in the snow. We left for Oregon on the 19th of December from Provo. Just south of SLC we hit a snowstorm that was pretty heavy until just past Ogden. It was then great weather from there all the way to Boise. We spent the night with Nicole and left the next morning at 5:30 to drive to Monmouth, us in our car and Nicole in hers. The blue mountains were cake and we were way ahead of schedule coming into The Dalles. That's when the snow started hitting us. We tried to get some chains there, since the ones I had were not fitting right anymore, but they were all out. So we headed out to Hood River and the chains they gave us there were too big. But they had no sizes left, and the sun was beginning to sink and ODOT was beginning to shut down Hood River. So we took off from there. Immediately it began to snow even harder and the winds picked up. Right after we left Hood River they began to shut the town down except for emergency vehicles. We hit some stalled traffic as winds were getting around 50 mph. Then it got dark. We couldn't see the road, the winds were still 50 mph, and we were going around 5-10 mph in total darkness as our windshields kept freezing over. It was a blizzard for over 2 hrs. of driving. Right when we got into Troutdale they shut down I-84 behind us because of an accident and poor driving conditions. They just barely opened up I-84 today, the 23rd, 3 days after we went through. We finally made it onto I-205 and went down to I-5. After we got onto I-5 they began shutting down parts of I-205. But we kept pushing through, not wanting to stop. We eventually made it to Monmouth after 15 hrs. of driving only to hit an ice storm. But we made it. We are safe. Sorry we don't have any pictures but I think our nerves were too racked to try and snap some photos.

2 comments:

Renetta said...

Gads...Jeffie...only after I read your blog do I see that you were in a Blizzard for two hours. You never told us that while you were coming home....phew...maybe it was best....
MOM
PS...Goodness we have had fun with you and Sarah....who knew Sarah was such a kick...Yeah for Sarah.. oh and yeah for Jeffies and Cola

mclark777 said...

It looks like a Christmas miracle! I'm glad you are safe and now you get to come back to Utah the same way. Hopefully the roads are open by now!