The Move

Here is the story. We got out of graduation Friday night the 12th, and it was snowing like crazy. We were going to be leaving the next day, Saturday, for our trip to Washington. The plan was to drive through Montana and make it to Moses Lake Saturday night, go to church with my parents, and then have both of our families drive down to Kennewick Sunday afternoon to help us unload the truck. Well, it didn't really happen like that! Friday night we decided that we were going to drive through Boise and Oregon. Montana was getting HUGE storms. I am talking feet of snow here! We also decided that we would just get up when we did Saturday morning and finish cleaning and packing and we would just drive until we wanted to get a hotel. We were hoping we could make it to Ontario or Baker City. We went to bed and it pretty much snowed all night.

In the morning we finished getting everything packed and cleaned and probably got out of Rexburg around 11:00. David was driving the Budget truck, and I was driving with Cambree and My cousin, Brittany, in the Tahoe. The Budget truck had terrible tires! But with a small blessing the night before, my brother told us he had a couple of chains his boss had given him that day and asked if we wanted them, we were on our way. The roads were pretty bad getting out of Rexburg, but they progressively got better not worse so we were counting our blessings. By the time we got to Burley they were pretty dry and clear and we figured we would make our destination for the night. Well we got just about to Boise and it started to snow again, and it was FREEZING cold outside, I am talking like single digits! The snow was freezing on the roads as soon as it hit! I started to slide a little so I radioed David and told him we should probably slow down a little. Another small blessing because about five minutes later we were coming over the top of the hill and everyone was stopped. David slid a little to a stop, thank goodness we slowed down or he probably wouldn't have gotten stopped in time. While he was sliding he got over a lane so that he wouldn't slide into the person in front of him. I was going to get over too but when I looked in my rear view mirror I noticed the car coming up in that lane was going WAY to fast. I stayed in my lane, and sure enough he couldn't stop and slid right into the back of David. I proceeded to try and get over two more times and two more cars were going WAY TO FAST! both couldn't stop and one spun out across the freeway and hit the guard rail and the other just barely missed the car that ran into David (thank goodness because if he would have hit it he would have probably hurt David because David was already out of his truck talking to the kid that hit him, yes I was freaking out slightly watching it all go down). But that car ended up smashing into the pickup that was in my lane and spun the pickup around and spit both cars in opposite directions. Plus we were stopped originally for a wreck farther up the road.

There were more wrecks on the opposite side of the freeway and more that happened around us. Luckily for me in the Tahoe all of the cars just went around me as I sat in the middle of the freeway trying to get out of the way. The paramedics showed up to make sure nobody was hurt and then it took forever for the cops to get there. We probably sat on the freeway for a good hour. By then it was dark and snowing and we decided just to take the next exit and stay the night in Boise. It snowed all night.

We got up the next day and didn't think the roads were going to be all that great but it was daylight and we decided to try. We figured if it got too bad we could stay the night in a town further down the road. The roads weren't too bad, they even got clear in places and we were able to drive the speed limit. Once we got into the mountains that was sort of another story. We had to stop and put the chains on the Budget truck. The Tahoe did amazing in 4 wheel drive, I didn't slide once and I was able to stop when I needed to! All through the mountains it was pretty slow driving and the roads were completely covered. Most everyone was driving cautiously which made it nice. The scariest part was coming down out of the mountains with a very steep decline. We were going about 20 mph. The roads never really did get much better all the way to Kennewick. Thankfully we did make it all in one piece and our families met us at our apartment to move us in. And yes it was snowing like crazy.

As for the little accident in the Budget truck everything turned out ok. Budget couldn't even tell we got hit so they told us they weren't going to file a claim or do anything about it. We did lose our big bookshelf when we got hit, it pretty much just crumbled when we opened the door. I was sad, but we will replace it next month hopefully. We are happy to be here and be closer to family. We like our little apartment and have family just a few doors away. We are trying to get all settled and I am looking forward to getting on a schedule again.