Freeway Trauma (at least for me...)

Last night, my high school friends and I had a Christmas party down in Orem. We had a really great time, but I will post about it later because my camera was dead and I need Kyla to send me pictures! Anyway, I thought just the drive alone was blog-worthy though because I have honestly never been so scared on the freeway before. In fact, KUTV's website had the following heading about the storm:

Heavy Snow Blankets Utah, Chaos For Drivers
Heavy snow fell continuously on the Wasatch Front on Thursday evening and created nightmarish traffic jams throughout the valley.

And after our experience last night, we can attest to that!

Yesterday afternoon, we left our house at 4:30 to get down to Orem. It had just started snowing here and was sticking, but we figured the further south we got, the less snow there would be. We were wrong... In the end, between all the traffic, snow, and getting stuck behind 4 snow plows going 5 mph, it took us 3 hours to get down there! (Normally, it takes us just over an hour.) The whole drive down there didn't scare me, it was just extremely irritating.

Well, the party was supposed to start at 6:30 but by the time we all got there, it was 7:30, and of course we wanted to hang out and talk, so we ended up staying until 10:30. We weren't too nervous about the roads because it hadn't snowed in hours and even the city streets in Orem were only wet, so we thought the freeway would be fine. Utah County was fine, no problems there, but once we came around the point of the mountain into Salt Lake County, the roads became terrible. A car started spinning out right in front of us, but fortunately, was able to regain control before hitting us (if he had kept spinning, we would have hit him, no question about it). Then, just a couple miles up the road, there were 3 slide-offs, and just a couple more miles up from there, there was a 4-car accident blocking the car pool lane. After that point, I can't even count how many slide-offs we saw. There were cars on the shoulder all over the place. I felt pretty safe because Greg was driving slow and having 4WD was comforting, but I swear to you, some Utahns think they are invincible drivers in their little Honda Civics in the snow! It was so irritating.

Well, then we got up into Davis County around Bountiful, and the roads were still about the same as they had been in Salt Lake - slushy and icy in parts. All the sudden, we saw headlights bouncing around over the median. A car had lost control and was sliding down the freeway backwards, bashing into the median the whole way. I started freaking out and screaming at Greg, "4WD NOW!!!" :) (Until that point, he had been using AUTO most of the time, but I was about to have a panic attack after seeing that...)

Anyway, the roads were still pretty bad up until about Kaysville, but from there until we got home, they were okay. I guess it was just a scary experience for me because I've driven in bad weather before, but I've never had all of those things happen around me, especially seeing that car spinning on the other side of the freeway. I am just extremely glad there was a median for him to hit, and not us. The whole night just confirmed to me that my long-time decision of always having Greg drive in the snow is a good one, because if I had been driving, my freaking out probably would have caused an accident all in itself! :) Until next time! -Ash