A few weeks ago, Bill and I traveled to Utah to deliver a few random things for the soon-to-be-married William and NaKya. We wanted to arrive in time to be in the temple with them when NaKya went through for the first time...to make this happen we would need to leave on a Thursday night and drive straight through...19 or so hours. We loaded a U-Haul trailer and pulled out of our driveway about 7pm. We switched off driving and made great time, stopping only for gas and to use the restroom. William and NaKya were going to meet us in Cedar City at their storage unit...everything was falling nicely into place. We were following a little different route because we had never traveled from Texas to Cedar...so we let the GPS do the navigating...and then, there it was. A big sign that said "Road Closed", followed closely by another sign which read "All Roads Open"...so of course, we continued on down the "road closed/all roads open" road. We came to at least 4 gates that said "road closed", but half of the gate was always wide open...so of course, we continued on...it did seem a little odd that we never saw any traffic...I mean NONE. The temperature was dropping...when we left Dallas, it was about 85 degrees...our car was registering about 42 degrees as we traveled up the "road closed/ all roads open" canyon road. Once we started our decent into what we hoped would be Cedar City...the tire pressure on one of the tires dropped drastically and in less than a minute we were sitting on the side of the road with a completely flat tire...did I mention all of the snow around us? And did I mention we were dressed for summer...not a jacket in sight? Our car is pretty new and we had not changed a tire on it since we bought it...after consulting the owner's manual a few times, Bill was able to lower the spare and eventually change the tire...holy cow what a process! I need to mention that I am married to the most patient guy ever...he kept his cool perfectly which made a potentially miserable situation bearable:) This story could really go on for a while...I will cut to the chase...we did not turn around even at that point...we continued until we came to a concrete barricade, talked to a worker who was finishing up for the day who said the road was CLOSED, shocking, I know---he said the mountainside had covered the road...it was in fact impassable:)...lucky us...dumb us...now Bill got to back the rather large, YukonXL, pulling a U-Haul trailer up several hundred feet to a "pull-out" so we could turn around and get off this "definitely CLOSED road". (Did I mention that we had no cell service during this delay and that William and sweet NaKya were waiting and worrying in Cedar?) Anyway....about potentially going on forever...we did finally make it to Cedar City...3-4 hours later than planned...unloaded the stuff...returned the U-Haul and made it to St. George in time for some Cafe Rio and a nice night's rest, followed by a wonderful day at the St. George Temple...the moral to the story?...if the sign says "Road Closed"...the road is probably closed:)
Trying to figure out how to drop the spare tire from underneath the dang car:(
Making progress:)
The reason for the trip:) priceless.
