weekend trip

As many people know we went into South Jordan Saturday to go to the Oquirrh temple open house. We went with the primary from our branch so we met up with four other cars at the church at 9:30. We stopped in Lake Pointe to fill up the car with gas and for a potty break. As we got back on the free way we rounded the bend in the road and saw smoke and huge flames. We were stopped for like a hour and a half due to the fatal crash between a pickup truck and a FedEx truck.

Come to find out the FedEx truck was carrying live ammunition that would go off as it got hot enough. Due to this fact they were not allowing vehicles to go past the crash site. They took down the barrier between east and west bound traffic and sent us back west. We all pulled off in Lake Pointe again and some made the decision to just go home and others made the decision to go to Tooele and then down around the Oquirrh mountains. As we came into Lehi traffic was extremely busy. They had road construction going on along with all the extra traffic coming thru due to the freeway closure.

When we finally made it to the temple we were forced to wait in our car as the lightning was striking a little too close for comfort, and the rain was coming down so hard we would have been soaked in seconds had we left the car.

If you look closely at Angel Moroni you will notice that his horn and face look a little black. Come to find out the lightning that was too close for comfort in fact was way to close. Angel Moroni was struck as we sat in our car in the parking lot.

After doing the temple tour we went and got some food. I then took the kids shopping and that was a night mare. After sitting in the car for six hours the kids just wanted to run. unfortunately Danielle and I were just as tired as they were and did not want to have to chase them. I tried to hurry through our shopping. After we were done with all the shopping I had the energy to do, we check to see if I-80 was opened. Although it was not fully opened they were letting cars around in one lane. So we took 201 up and had to wait another fifty minutes in traffic. As we got to the point that we were a quarter mile from the freeway on ramp the freeway was finally opened and we were on our way home.

Traffic was terrible on I-80. In the four and a half years that I have lived in Nevada I have never driven I-80 with so many cars the whole 100 miles from the 201 on ramp. I think the average speed of the cars was close to 85 mph. I know I set the cruise two miles faster than I normally do. We got home at 9 that night. We had left the house at 9 that morning. For those twelve hours that we had been gone we had spent at least 8 of them sitting in the car and probably half of those hours completely stopped.

It was a long day. I was tired, I was ornery and I would have loved to have just gone to bed when I got home. It was hard dealing with two little boys that had been stuck in the car for way too long. I had to remind myself that I was truly blessed. If for no other reason than I was able to go home that night.