Does one reap or ride the whirlwind? I couldn’t decide so the title was simplified.

Let me first say that Salt Lake City is a really beautiful place, geographically speaking. It is odd that I would say that because I never pictured myself here for any reason whatsoever. There are placed that you know you’ll get to eventually, places you’ve been, and places you could see yourself going. The rest are places that have no obvious reason to bring you around for a visit. Such is me and SLC.

Then Elz’s father, an OTR had a heart attack while waiting out the latest set of crazy storms plaguing Wyoming. He ended up in a hospital in Rock Springs, WY for about 24 hours. They apparently have no cardiology specialist or equipment to speak of so he was in suspended animation for a day while they waited for the winds to calm down enough to bring a chopper from SLC.

Because of the intense worry amongst the Hudson progeny and spouse back home in Nebraska, a road trip was organized. We left the Omaha / Carter Lake area knowing that I-80 was still closed from Rawlins to Evanston in Wyoming. For those of you without a working knowledge of Wyoming (as I was until Friday) that’s roughly half the state.

We piled into the Egglet and headed west with the intent of switching out drivers along the way. Well, I have a tough time turning the reigns to the Egglet over and so drove all the way to Kimball, Nebraska before the group turned against me and voted to pull off for the night. The winds had already gotten pretty bad at that point and the Egglet was bouncing from wall to wall fighting the gusts.

After raiding the “breakfast” at the Days Inn, we continued the journey at about 7:30 am. The drive was alright until we got close to Cheyenne. The winds picked up again and soon the Egglet was rocking and bucking. Luckily, the winds and roads conspired to never be a direct crosswind. Taking the gusts on the nose though meant that it felt like the Egglet was going 120 mph instead of 60 mph I was able to maintain. Couple that with climbing in to the Rockies and you’ve got one angry sounding engine.

We didn’t get out of the car until Laramie. The cold wind was was, erm, bracing. I pumped gas and Elz walked in to the store to browse for donuts. She made it about a third of the way from the car, turned around, and walked back. She sat down woozily and started sucking O₂. The thin air positively kicked her ass.

Between Laramie and Rawlins we fought monster headwinds and started seeing blowing snow. Luckily the snow was flying so fast it never had time to stick to the pavement and start drifting. Just west of Rawlins we saw some serious snow pack and I thought we were done for. It was only about a mile or so and then we returned to the same 50 – 70 mph headwinds. Saw a sign that had blown down and Elz made the comment that the sign probably said: In the event you cannot read this sign, you are in some serious shit.

Between mile markers 265 and 250 we saw several semis and trailers blown on their sides. We saw a cleanup in progress where one trailer had been blown into another trailer as it was passing. Consumer goods and wreckage were strewn all over the interstate. We saw a tandem trailer that had whipped around and struck the front of the semi, crumpling the driver’s side and occupying a good quarter mile of the median. It was a friggin’ mess.

Needless to say, we made it through relatively unscathed.

We stopped in Wamsutter which was one of the most remarkable clusterfucks I’ve ever seen. Trailers backed up on both ramps trying to get in and fuel up. The single lot so choked with trucks and people a state patrol unit elbowed its way in to direct traffic. We had sandwiches made by a Thomas Kinkade level sandwich artiste and left as soon as we could.

The rest of Wyoming was a combination of bad winds, spots of blowing snow, and slight drifting in places. I’d never been so glad to get out of a state before in my life. There’s nothing I saw of Wyoming that would recommend it to anyone. The view was nice in places but it mostly looked like a highly elevated version of Nebraska without the ability to grow crops.

Utah, on the other hand, is beautiful. Driving down out of the mountains every turn brought a new, incredible vista to take in. We traveled alongside a stream that was begging me to get out and drown a few flies in.

The pops was in rare form when we finally got to see him. He was nonplussed and genuinely happy, probably for the first time in a while. Soon the shock wore off and he was back to hounding the staff. When we finally left last night they were seeing about giving him a nicotine patch. If his efforts were finally successful, he may actually be cheery this morning. At any rate, we’re off to find out. More updates as they occur and I have time to jot them down.