If you’re just tuning in, be sure to first read The Day I Thought We Were Going to Die, Part I.
So, where were we? Right. The Wyoming freeway was closed due to snow, wind and suicidal conditions and my dear husband came up with an alternate route.
I will never again trust his “alternate routes” without thorough research.
“Look here!” he pointed to his iPhone’s GPS. Let’s just take Route 14, which runs kind of parallel to I-90, connect with Route 16 and then cut back down to Buffalo. Then, we’ll be able to get back on the freeway.”
Several cars were heading in that direction so I figured it would be fine.
What was not fine was Plan B.
“Let’s keep calling the WY road conditions. If I-90 opens up, we’ll take North Piney Road back to the freeway.”
Can’t see North Piney Road on this map? That is because it is too small and sketchy to even be included. (It’s located north of Lake de Smet).
As we followed the caravan of cars along Highway 14, conditions were blustery but plowed and drivable. When we reached the turnoff for North Piney Road, I learned via WY’s road hotline that the freeway had reopened. “Let’s do it!” Jamie announced.
But then I spotted North Piney, which was the very definition of remote. Dread enveloped my body. As Jamie tried to turn off, we started sliding, almost causing an accident and augmenting my alarm.
“Let’s just keep going on Highway 14.” I begged. “This just feels wrong.” But Jamie was already en route. Within a couple of minutes, North Piney’s conditions worsened. Only one truck had dared to traverse the deep snow earlier that morning and Jamie attempted to follow its tracks on the unplowed road.
Yes, I did say attempted.
My coping skills were nonexistent as I replayed a television special where a young family got lost and then stuck in the snowy Oregon mountains after accidentally taking an abandoned service road. After several days, the father James Kim left his stranded family to seek help..and was found dead in a canyon.
I played it out in my mind. I would go for help. I was the Canuck. I was strong. I liked snow. I took a mental note of the few farmhouses we passed, determining they would be our lifeline.
And then we got stuck and all plans went out the window. I freaked. And cried. We didn’t have anything to dig us out and the road was A-B-A-N-D-O-N-E-D. To Jamie’s credit, he was calm as we rocked back and forth, eventually surging forward.
For the first time, Hadley looked up from watching a movie and clued into her surroundings. “THEY NEED TO PLOW THIS ROAD!!!!!”
Gee, you think?
We miraculously made it to I-90. “I didn’t think we were going to get out of there,” Jamie later confessed. And then I thanked him for waiting to tell me. Someone needed to keep it together.
That wasn’t the end of our troubles. We heard more reports the freeway was closed again in Casper, WY and Denver had its own problems with closures due to high winds. Casper was still two hours away so I prayed we wouldn’t have to spend New Year’s Eve stuck in Wyoming.
I started to make calls to local hotels just in case. When we arrived in Casper, freeway closure signs abounded. As we started surrendering to the inevitable, a miracle happened: in a decidedly Parting of the Red Sea-esque moment, the freeway reopened at the exact moment we arrived.
Just call us Moses. Or Aaron. Heck, Children of Israel works, too.
We squeaked into Denver that night several hours later than anticipated. I grabbed a bucket of KFC, toasted the New Year via last year’s Ball Drop on YouTube and was contentedly passed out by 9:30 p.m.
And there’s no way I would have rather ended a decidedly crummy 2011 than snuggled up in my own bed.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 