Our Crazy Adventure!

Darin's mom was here for the weekend and was going to go home Sunday afternoon. We were getting ready for church and decided we should check the internet to see how the roads were for her going home.(to Dillon, Montana) They didn't look to great, so we were worried about her driving, as was she. We decided to take her home. Darin and I drove our car with Donna and Bry with us while darin's brother Drew drove Donna's car up with one of his friends with him.

Well....there was a huge storm that day! We got stuck right in the middle of it! They normally close the interstate at Dubois, Idaho and also in Dillon, Mt. We made it past Dubois so we thought we were good to go. We had a couple people call telling us the road was closed but we were like nope, we are on it right now. It turns out they closed the road at Dubois about 5 min after we past it, so we thought we were good to go to get to Dillon. Little did we know.

We all had to go to the bathroom very badly, so we stopped off at Lima, Mt., only about 45 miles from Dillon. We went to go get back on the interstate, and they had a cop car blocking it. We were stuck in the great town of Lima, Mt, population 250!! they ended up setting up an emergency shelter at the one and only school in the town(K-12) The Red Cross was there and provided hot chocolate, coffee, and cookies. It normally takes 2 hours to get to Dillon...however....we had left at 2:20 from Rexburg and at this point it was 5:00....and we still had 45 miles to go.

















this semi was off the road, so while we were completely stopped Darin and Drew went and helped him put on chains on his tires because he was pretty old and he had slipped on the ice and fell so I felt pretty bad for him!
This is what Dare looked like when he came back in.

Drew's friend Katie for some reason had Phase 10 in her purse, so we played that while at the school, we were the first ones there so we thought why not, what else do we have to do) The Red Cross also had puzzles and such so we did a puzzle too

These are pics of the shelter and us hanging out waiting

The roads were terribly scary!! You had to stay close enough to the vehicle in front of you to see their tail lights but we also had to keep making sure we could see Drew's headlights behind us. From Rexburg to Lima Donna & I had counted 33 cars off the road. only 5 of them were on the Idaho side, the other 28 were within a 10 mile distance! Only one was actually "wrecked" it was rolled over with the ambulances and everything! It was very scary...espcially knowing I had my little daughter in the back seat with us! we were only going about 15 mph...sometimes a little more sometimes a little less, and at one point we were even at a complete stop for a few minutes.

Well....we ended up staying the night in Lima! they had 19 cotts for people to sleep on, but about 100 people. the motel was full also. Luckily, we were one of the fortunate families to be able to stay at someone's home. (mostly becvause we had a baby, and because Darin and his mom knew the members that lived in the town since they are in the same stake) they were going to let the few of us that were going North go and just follow the cop the whole way to Dillon, but then heard that there were 4 cars off between Lima and Dillon and the tow truck couldn't find any of them because there was such low visability!

The next morning the interstate was still closed when we got up, so we were going to try the back road to get onto the interstate. when we left we decided to go check out the interstate first, and they had no cop blocking the road so we thought it was open and went for it, with one other car following us. We realized there was no other traffic on the roads(other than snow plows and tow trucks) so I called the fire department and they said it was still closed. well....we were on it anyway.... we made it to dillon....finally!!

this is on the way to dillon in the morning.

the roads were pretty good actually, and the wind had stopped for the most part. they had sanded the roads and the sky was blue.

We were able to make it home yesterday around 4:30.the roads were perfect and we were able to finally go normal speed! you couldn't even tell there had been a storm the night before hardly(but you could see the tracks where a ton of people had slid off the road) Let's just say it was a nice little adventure....but one I never want to experience again!

this is on the way home to rexburg

To top it off....Darin's dad and brother had made a nice roast and mashed potatoes for dinner....and that made it even worse sitting in Lima knowing we had a nice dinner waiting for us : )