The joy of driving

Last night we were to pick up Charlotte at the Salt Lake City airport at the same time a major snowstorm was getting ready to hit Utah. Normally the 36 mile trip between our house and the airport only takes 36 minutes, but last night was a totally different story. We left at about 5:10 pm and traffic was incredibly heavy on the four-lane highway that leads to the Interstate; snow was starting and winds were very strong. Traffic was already backed-up and we thought that it was just rush hour and once on the main freeway, things would go much better. Well, not really, they actually got worst once we reached I-80 and the snow kept falling on very heavily; by that time every vehicle was bumper-to-bumper and traffic was crawling. The situation kept on deteriorating as we started to climb the Parley Summit hill to the point that nothing was moving anymore. Small trucks with bald tires and no load in the back were stuck spinning their wheels, huge trucks were stopped on either sides of the freeway, cars seemed abandoned on the shoulders and in the dark, without any visibility, the whole situation looked quite spooky. As we were barely moving, we kept on calling Charlotte whose flight was delayed out of San Francisco and made arrangement to have her brother pick her up and stay with him for the night. It had taken us 2 full hours to drive just 10 miles! We then slalomed through giant trucks, flirting with the ditch on the right and managed to drive to the Parley Summit exit, where we luckily turned around and drove back home on the eastbound lanes that were snow-covered, but passable. These monster snowstorms are not common occurrence, but when they happen and we’re on the road, we do remember them!