Part 1 is here.
When I last wrote, I left us at the most suspenseful cliffhanger of us drving in the snow. In Arizona. The state in which I thought I would see cactuses by the road side. Not a winter wonderland
The snow was coming down pretty good. And the wind was blowing too. Justin was getting a little stressed because he does not like to drive in the snow. But especially in a new-to-us car that we have never driven in snow before.
And at this point, I’d like to add that Jaxson decided he was done riding in the car for the day. He kept trying to get up and out of his seat and telling me “up.” I’m sure Justin didn’t need that.
The snow did let up for a bit, but as soon as we started climbing up a mountain (again, didn’t know there were mountains in Arizona) we met right back up with the snow. By the time we hit Flagstaff, AZ they had 13 inches of new snow. When we got off at our exit, the hotel was only about a mile away. but it was the longest drive ever since the street wasn’t plowed. Snow was everywhere. We were never so happy to see our hotel. As we pulled into the driveway our car couldn’t get up the teeny tiny hill because it was so slippery. We tried a couple of times before we ended up backing up in the street and trying the other side of the driveway. Sucess! We quickly found a spot and vowed never to the leave the hotel until we checked out. We did not want to get stuck again. (Little did we know how long we were staying at that hotel!)
As we were checking into our hotel, they actually ran out of rooms because travelers were stuck in Flagstaff. (So glad we had reservations!) The roads were getting that bad. We got settled into our room and thought that the roads were be better in the morning. We planned on leaving early.
Well, plans don’t always turn out. Justin woke me up in the morning and let me know that all the highways in and out of Flagstaff were closed. The wind was blowing so hard that it was white out conditions. The snow was drifting. So we decided to book another night at the hotel in case the road didn’t open up. And even if they did, we didn’t want to be out on the them with everyone else.
We did go outside a couple of times that day. But it was miserable out there. But we had to eat, and near our hotel we had three choices. A Chinese restaurant, an Italian restaurant, and a Circle K Market. We ended up eating at all three at some point. The Chinese restaurant was ok, the Italian restaurant was so good, but expensive, and the Circle K was good to stalk up on beef jerky and M&M’s! There was a Taco Bell and Long John Silvers about 1/2 a mile down the road. That was way too far for us to walk in that weather.
The snow and wind made it so cold. It would blow in all directions and in your face. We should have taken a picture of the snow. But it was so cold out there that we didn’t think about it. We just wanted to stay where it was nice and warm. So just pretend I have a picture of snow piling up on the ground with white out conditions. Or use this newspaper cover to give you an idea of the artic blast we were receiving!
In the meantime, I got to catch up on a soap opera that I stopped watching a couple of years back. Not much has changed. Sure, everyone is married to a different people now and someone had come back from the dead, but other than that, I’m good for another several years before I need to tune in again. But I sure welcomed the entertainment. It was a nice break from The Weather Channel.
The roads did open back up late that afternoon and we did contemplate getting out of there, but so was everyone else. We both thought it was best to stay put and plan on leaving around 5am the next morning to get a head start on our drive.
And 5am came really early.
Justin woke me up and I got dressed. And then I looked at the clock. It was 3:18am! He had tricked me. But in reality he just wanted to get out on the road and get the snow out of the way. I told him that waking up a 31 week pregnant woman at 3am is considered spousal abuse. Ha!
The road was slippery. But they did do a good job of taking care of it the best they could. We were slowly coming down off the mountain. It was 0 degrees out in Flagstaff. As we were decending it got into the negatives. Our car started building up ice on it.
Now this isn’t the best picture in the world, but this is our car saying it’s -7 degrees outside. Crazy!
I was so tired but didn’t want to fall asleep with Justin trying to drive in the snow. I got pretty excited when I started to see that we were leaving the snow. Once I saw that the snow was gone, I konked out. This pregnant woman needed her zzzz’s. The funny thing is that Jax was wide awake and watching movies the whole time. We even kept him in his pajamas so he could sleep. But no, that kid was all about not missing out on the fun!
About a couple of hours later, we were in California. California was a very long drive. And Justin was determined to make up for the lost day in the hotel. So we drove all the way to Medford, OR. If Justin could have, he just wanted to drive all the way home. But both Jax and I couldn’t have done that. We drove a total of 18 hours that day. We left at 4am and got to the hotel around 9pm. I have absolutely no pictures of this day. In fact, I’m not ever sure I remember this day! I was so tired and just wanted to get out of the car. Ironically, Jax did better in the car on this day than any other day. I think he was just so tired that he didn’t care where he was. He would sleep and then wake up to play.
We konked out as soon as we got to the room. That was how we spent New Year’s Eve…sound asleep! That’s the first time in forever that we haven’t stayed up to watch the ball drop. Or the fireworks off the Space Needle! We were such exciting people!
And then from Medford, OR to home! Another full day in the car. But atleast I remember this day. In fact I drove a lot of it, because Justin was tired of driving. So the boys sat in the backseat and watched part of Toy Story 3.
We were all happy to arrive home but Jax especially happy to be home. He was running around playing with all his toys and torturing the cats. And the cats didn’t mind because they seemed to miss us!
I would definitely do another road trip. I saw so many parts of the U.S. that you can’t see or explore when you are flying. But you have to have the time and flexibility. And I would prefer not to travel in the winter. That snow can stop you in your journey on a moment’s notice!
