Vegas ANYONE!!!!

Greetings Family!!! Hope everyone's week is off to a great start.

Thanksgiving is just a few short days away, and with that being said....I have a number of things to be thankful for...starting with making it home safe and sound from a... interesting trip in Vegas. Actually, interesting doesn't really do the events on this trip justice...but for lack of better words at the moment... we'll leave it at interesting.

So, where to begin....
I've been concerned about my mommy (who happens to live in Vegas, for those of you that aren't aware) and her health so much over the last few months, so I thought I needed to take a trip to visit and make sure shes ok. We talked about her moving to CO after my last trip to Vegas and I thought it was pretty much a done deal until she up and changed her mind on me. I should have known it was too good to be true....that's classic mom, changing her mind at the last minute. My brother is there to help her and has been for the past several months so that definitely takes away some of my anxieties about her being there.

So sometime last week I decided....I'm going to go to Vegas so I can PHYSICALLY see my mom and know that she's ok. I also decided that I was going to drive AND that I was going to drive by myself. Smart? NO! For sooo many different reasons I find, during my fun filled trip. Hubby was not comfortable with my going alone, but I always think that I'm capable of things only to find out later on.....Ummm, not such a good idea. I used to drive from MN to MD to visit mom on a regular basis when she lived there. I would do that 19 hr drive in probably like 17, with very minimal stops and would rarely feel tired. After trying to reassure hubby, I packed up my bags and then on Thursday morning hit I70 to Vegas.

Vegas is an 11 hour drive which doesn't seem too bad when I THINK about it but actually DOING it is something else all together. Initially my plan was to wake up at 6:30 and be on the road, but (AHEM) due to circumstances beyond my control...that didn't happen. I was hoping to get most of the driving done during the day so I'd only have a few hours of night driving. Not sure what time I actually started heading out of the city but the first few hours went ok. I was thinking this isn't so bad. The weather was ok, traffic not bad, roads were good and then.....all of a sudden sleepiness hits. Then of course, the cell phone starts....No signal, then NO SERVICE, then dropped calls, then failed calls, then NO SERVICE. Gotta love ATandT. I feel like I really need to get a new cell phone provider because the issues I'm having with them are becoming too many to count and almost unbearable. So with no good cell coverage, especially when I don't care for driving at night in unfamiliar places, I decide it's time to call it a night. It's pretty sad when you can't do an 11 hour drive. I remember when road trips used to be easy; guess that's a thing of the past.

So with the exception of the unplanned hotel stay and issues with the phone the drive TO Vegas, annoying as it was pretty much uneventful. Coming back though....WHOA... Let me provide you with a few visuals if I may.

So it's about 2:30 in the afternoon...Just made it into Beaver Utah (lol), it starts snowing and then all of a sudden traffic is at a stand still. So I'm sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting....Next thing I know it's 4:30 and still NO movement. Now you all know that I can over exaggerate just so that you understand the degree of what I'm feeling at times...but Seriously...this time I literally mean I had not moved NOT ONE INCH in two hours. Notice the snow accumulation on the mirror. And of course I had NO SERVICE on my cell again. Freaking A!!!!

I think this is hour 3 sitting in the car with STILL NO MOVEMENT!!!! UGH!!!!

Did anyone notice that it was daylight? Well, now it's not!!! People were turning off their cars. Hopefully everyone had a full tank of gas. People were getting out their cars (notice the feet print up the middle of the road) to see if the could find out what was going on.

So, finally.... A police officer begins going car to car telling everyone to exit at the next exit because they are closing down the highways until they are able to get the roads plowed and clear up an accident. I later find out that there were several semi's that crashed, jack knifed or something.... They didn't have any clear idea of how long the roads would be closed.... So guess what people....yep another night in a hotel. So at this point it's going on 7. I cant get in touch with the family because I'm losing signal and service every time the wheels on the car spin. I finally make it to the exit and there is to my left a hotel called Flying eagle, a Super 8, to the right a Comfort inn and I think like 2 Best Westerns. So the first Hotel I try Flying eagle, because it was the better looking and less frightening of all the hotels. I'm mad I didn't take a picture because in order to check in at the hotel, you had to go to the service station across from the parking lot. HILARIOUS!!! So of course they are full. UGH!! Next hotel FULL!! And so on. So I drive trying to get a signal so I can call home and let everyone know what's going on and try to find another hotel in good old BEAVER UTAH!!!

The closest hotel I could find with availability is 30 miles away in a town called Milford. I know, scary right? The hotel Oak Tree Inn took me over an hour to get to because I had to travel on a one lane road and the car in front of me was going like 30 miles an hour. So I get there and low and behold....gotta check in at a diner across the parking lot. So I'm looking around waiting for someone to jump out, put a rag with chloroform on it over my face and pull me into a van with no windows. Straight out of a scary movie. I drive up to the diner and theres a scary skinny man outside smoking a cigarette, and no one else in sight. I walk in and talk to the woman at the register slash front desk (too comical) and get checked in. Then another guy comes in and somehow starts talking about cell phones and him being stranded as well. I slip and mention like a ding dong "nope, my cell phone isn't working either" and then as soon as it comes out my mouth.... think to myself, he may be some killer guy and now that he knows I have no way to call 911 in the event of an emergency I just made myself his next victim. Dramatic I know...but hey, it's late, I'm sleep deprived, physically tired, beyond cold, hungry, stomach ache and just wanting to be in a bed...so my mind comes up with these crazy, but NOT SO crazy thoughts. Hey...it's happened before. At this point it's about 9pm. Keep in mind this all started shortly after 2.

The room isn't too bad....it's just for a few hours so I'm guessing and HOPING I'll live through the night. I call hubby from the hotel phone which was way too complicated. I would have given up had the family not been so worried and had I been able to have some type of communication with them while all this mess was going on. I wake up and call the front desk. No word on when the roads will open, so I call state patrol and there's accidents in both directions with the roads still closed. By time I was able to get back on the road it was going on 12pm, but hey...at least I'm on the road again.

Oh, but wait....the fun doesn't stop there. I'm driving...thinking I'm making pretty good time then all of a sudden I see a red little lightening bolt on the dash board in my car and my car loses power. Like what else could go wrong. I'm searching the little manual trying to figure out what this means and wondering if something was really wrong that it would have been noticed when my car was serviced about a month ago. So I find out that it's a throttle sensor and it say that if it flashes the car needs to be service immediately; and of course it was flashing. All I could think to myself was REALLY!!!!! So I pull over, shut my car off and of course I have no cell signal. I turn off the engine let it cool for awhile and it looks like we're back in business....for a little while. So it did this the remainder of the way home.

I think by time I got home it was about 11pm and needless to say I was physically and emotionally exhausted. More so emotionally; I think I cried more times last night than I have in a LONG time. Lol I STILL haven't unpacked. I showered and jumped in the bed and was out in 2.2 seconds. I don't snore, but I just may have snored last night. So on my list of things to do tomorrow...unpack and on my list of things not to do...Road trip....NEVER. Well at least not alone.

On the bright side...it was great to see my mom and great to see my little big brother. She's doing better than I thought. I'm still concerned, but not as much as I was before going and I'm glad that brother is there to take care of her. Thank goodness for that. If he weren't I'd probably be crazy by now from stressing over what's going on with her. Funny how roles between children and parents change as we both get older.

I do wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving holiday or whatever you chose to celebrate. Peace and Blessings.........