Rollin', rollin', rollin' D:
So, for reasons best known to himself, Dad thought it'd be a brilliant idea to drive to Idaho (grandparents live there now) by way of South Dakota and Montana in the middle of December. Needless to say, it was rather windy and snowy- "rather" meaning "70 mph winds and roads covered in snow and black ice." We were between Sturgis and Rapid City, SD when one of these 70 mph gusts hit us while we were on a patch of ice.
Guess where our Explorer went?
Into the median.
We fishtailed six or seven times after the wind hit- I was asleep at the time and woke up to Mom swearing her head off and the car swerving all over. Brynne dove on top of me (she'd been sleeping on top of the luggage in the back), and let me say this: Calvin and Hobbes was correct in that "GRUNTCH" is exactly the sound a car makes when it rolls into a ditch. We only rolled once and ended up right-side-up, but one of the back windows was blown out and those winds were now blowing into the car.
The good thing about hicks (the kind of people who live in Rapid City and Sturgis) is that they're nice- there were five or six people by the car within five minutes, asking if we were okay and recovering the things that had fallen out of the car on its way off the road. Cops were called, and we were soon sitting in the back of a squad car (which is NOT a comfortable place to be in the first place, let alone with half our luggage in there with us.). One of the tow-truck guys got his friend to bring his truck to give us a ride to the hotel while the Explorer was hauled there with us so we could get the rest of our crap out of it. Or at least most of it- Dad forgot the Xbox, OHNOES!!!11! Other than that, we got all our stuff out of it and prepared to spend the night in what I call a "hooker drop"- the kind of hotel you'd end up in with a cheap whore. You couldn't shower for three minutes before the water was up to your ankles. And all the take-out places were closed, except for McDonald's, so we had that for the third time that day.
The next day, we called Enterprise (the best car-rental service around) only to find out that they don't do one-ways. We ended up going with Avis, and they presented us with a 2003/4 GMC Envoy to finish the trip. We took that to Aces High Towing to get the dregs of our stuff out of the Explorer- including the Xbox, which the owners had saved from a night of being snowed on. We salvaged our candy from the seat pockets and Mom got her I-Pass and garage door opener from the glove box, took a pic (I'll post that here after we get home) and were back on our way.
(And yes, we were all fine; the worst injury among us was the cut on Dad's nose. Which is all the more remarkable considering that he was the only one wearing a seatbelt.)
We were almost through Montana when tragedy nearly struck us again. It was snowing pretty hard, and we were on one of those curvy mountain Coyote-and-Roadrunner type roads, when a semi passed us and threw up so much snow that our view was completely whited out. I mean, WHITED OUT. We couldn't see a damn thing. If it wasn't for the rumble strip at the shoulder, we would have gone off the road. We ended up stopping in Bozeman instead of Butte, which we were going to stop in instead of Missoula. (Missoula, incidentally, is a VERY nice little town; I just might want to retire there when I'm old and gray.)
The drive between Bozeman and Grandma's (Lewiston, ID- just across the border from Spokane) was beautiful- those of you whom I told that Idaho has nothing but potatoes, I apologize for lying. It was all mountainy and snowy, with a river running along I-12 almost the whole way. Apparently, part of I-12 is the same route that Lewis and Clark followed, and it's so unspoiled that it's probably just as it was when they first saw it. Too bad you can smell Lewiston before you can see it- there's a paper mill there that you can smell for MILES. But still, it's nice here.
I forgot to wear my string of garnets on the Winter Solstice D:
And hello to Colin, I miss you and love you XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Guess where our Explorer went?
Into the median.
We fishtailed six or seven times after the wind hit- I was asleep at the time and woke up to Mom swearing her head off and the car swerving all over. Brynne dove on top of me (she'd been sleeping on top of the luggage in the back), and let me say this: Calvin and Hobbes was correct in that "GRUNTCH" is exactly the sound a car makes when it rolls into a ditch. We only rolled once and ended up right-side-up, but one of the back windows was blown out and those winds were now blowing into the car.
The good thing about hicks (the kind of people who live in Rapid City and Sturgis) is that they're nice- there were five or six people by the car within five minutes, asking if we were okay and recovering the things that had fallen out of the car on its way off the road. Cops were called, and we were soon sitting in the back of a squad car (which is NOT a comfortable place to be in the first place, let alone with half our luggage in there with us.). One of the tow-truck guys got his friend to bring his truck to give us a ride to the hotel while the Explorer was hauled there with us so we could get the rest of our crap out of it. Or at least most of it- Dad forgot the Xbox, OHNOES!!!11! Other than that, we got all our stuff out of it and prepared to spend the night in what I call a "hooker drop"- the kind of hotel you'd end up in with a cheap whore. You couldn't shower for three minutes before the water was up to your ankles. And all the take-out places were closed, except for McDonald's, so we had that for the third time that day.
The next day, we called Enterprise (the best car-rental service around) only to find out that they don't do one-ways. We ended up going with Avis, and they presented us with a 2003/4 GMC Envoy to finish the trip. We took that to Aces High Towing to get the dregs of our stuff out of the Explorer- including the Xbox, which the owners had saved from a night of being snowed on. We salvaged our candy from the seat pockets and Mom got her I-Pass and garage door opener from the glove box, took a pic (I'll post that here after we get home) and were back on our way.
(And yes, we were all fine; the worst injury among us was the cut on Dad's nose. Which is all the more remarkable considering that he was the only one wearing a seatbelt.)
We were almost through Montana when tragedy nearly struck us again. It was snowing pretty hard, and we were on one of those curvy mountain Coyote-and-Roadrunner type roads, when a semi passed us and threw up so much snow that our view was completely whited out. I mean, WHITED OUT. We couldn't see a damn thing. If it wasn't for the rumble strip at the shoulder, we would have gone off the road. We ended up stopping in Bozeman instead of Butte, which we were going to stop in instead of Missoula. (Missoula, incidentally, is a VERY nice little town; I just might want to retire there when I'm old and gray.)
The drive between Bozeman and Grandma's (Lewiston, ID- just across the border from Spokane) was beautiful- those of you whom I told that Idaho has nothing but potatoes, I apologize for lying. It was all mountainy and snowy, with a river running along I-12 almost the whole way. Apparently, part of I-12 is the same route that Lewis and Clark followed, and it's so unspoiled that it's probably just as it was when they first saw it. Too bad you can smell Lewiston before you can see it- there's a paper mill there that you can smell for MILES. But still, it's nice here.
I forgot to wear my string of garnets on the Winter Solstice D:
And hello to Colin, I miss you and love you XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
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