Day 1
The first leg of our trip consisted of a lot of fog...it's very dull weather to drive in. We'd stop now and again to get food and gas, but we mostly just munched on all the treats Judy had packed for us. We listened to a lot of podcasts, including Dear Hank and John, Ear Biscuits, and Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me, and that definitely made the time pass much more quickly.
We passed the portion of the road where Bill had been in an accident years earlier when hauling a trailer out to Pennsylvania for a trade show. A FedEx truck was off the road close to the same area when we passed by, but at this point we weren't nervous.
Really, our trip was rather uneventful until about the last 90 miles of Wyoming...which Aunt Nadine had warned us about. It came out of nowhere! There was a light flurry of snow and then suddenly all the Wyoming road signs were flashing and warning people to slow down and drive cautiously in these winter road conditions. The semis started to back up and red brake lights dotted the highway. Although the snow wasn't terrible just then, the wind picked up and it got cold. Black Ice.
It was slow driving for the next little while. We pulled off at a gas station because we weren't sure we'd have enough fuel to make it to Laramie at that point. It was a station in the middle of nowhere and they had a bright pink and purple hallway leading to the bathrooms. Although I was initially disturbed by their choice of paint color...I later realized that the station was owned by an Indian family - and suddenly all the decor design choices of that station were made clear to me. I kicked myself for being so quick to judge and to comment. A lesson I am constantly learning!
My car on the U-Haul dolly was all iced up. The sun had officially set. And it was up to us to make it to Laramie in the dark. I'm so glad I can trust in Bill's driving abilities! Just a few miles left to go before we could call it a night.
We pulled into a rest-stop that had a delicious place to eat called "The Iron Skillet" and we made ourselves quite comfy there. As we were sitting, Bill realized this was the same restaurant that they had stopped to eat at after his traumatic driving-off-the-road-experience all those years before. He pointed out the table where they had sat and how he basically broke down and cried the last time he was there. It's amazing how much detail and information your body takes in when your adrenaline pulses through your system. Bill's memories were vivid, and although it was a frightening experience for him then, it was nice to share a glimpse into his memories.
We stayed at the same hotel as a snowmobile club. We passed many people in the halls dressed in snow gear and branded clothing. They had matching trailers and trucks out in the parking lot as well. When we ate breakfast and planned our travels for that day, we overheard all their conversations discussing the same thing - where to ride that day.
As a side note: I mentioned in my last post that there were some items that the moving company wouldn't take and left it up to us if we wanted those things in Iowa. Among these items included house plants. I have these three plants that are all sentimental in some way - an orchid from Bill, a plant from Greg when I graduated USU, and a plant from my Higley family when Ben passed away. I really wanted to take them with us, so we thought we'd give it a try. As is obvious, house plants don't do well in the cold. We needed to cart them inside each of our hotels with us like little pets each night...and I prayed that they would survive. They seemed okay at the end of day one.
Day 2
It was like a switch flipped when we got to the Nebraska border. The weird wind and snowy and icy roads immediately vanished. We were suddenly able to cruise along without a care in the world!
We stopped in Sidney, Nebraska to stop and say we've been to the headquarters of Cabela's. We really did it just to take a picture to be able to send to Kyle later. We literally walked in and walked out...and went and got lunch at a swanky Subway across the street. Everything has a woodsy theme going on in that town, and I very much adored it. Antler chandelier and all!
We drove and we drove and we drove that day. We learned that Ethanol is viewed as an "enrichment" to your gas in the Midwest, where it seems heavily frowned upon back home. (Bill was outraged! Haha.) Our goal for the day was to get to Omaha that night so we could stop by and see the Noker family! In all their years of living in Nebraska, I had never been able to visit them at their home, and now was our chance. :)
We hadn't used a GPS at all up to this point. You can really get to Iowa City just by following road signs the entire way. But when it came time to making sure we got off on the right exit to get to Nadine and Marshall's home our GPS was spazzed out. It said we had overshot past their house by an hour and I panicked! No! No! No! How could we have overshot? I thought they lived right by Omaha? How did we miss them?
Bill and I were frustrated and I pulled out my phone in hopes that its GPS would tell us something different. We hurried to pull off at an exit and lo' and behold, the sign at the exit said "LaVista turn Right." ??? The GPS finally caught up to us and we didn't need to backtrack! We had miraculously turned off on the right exit. Blessings.
We followed the GPS's directions to the Noker's home and finally pulled up around 8:30 that night. It was so nice to sit and visit with them after a long day of driving! I sat next to Liz who was knitting some leg warmers for Hannah. And Ben, Marshall, and Nadine sat on the couch as we all talked together. Bill got his doggie-love from Freckles and the stress we had experienced minutes before was immediately dissolved. We talked about family and what to expect living out in the Midwest. Marshall showed me that some of our pioneer ancestors lived in some of the very places Bill and I will now be calling home - Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. It was really cool to have family ties to this "faraway place." We talked until 11:00pm and headed on our way to a hotel when we found out Marshall had to drive the basketball team to their game early in the morning!
Walking from their front step to our our car was like ice-skating. A thin layer of ice developed on the driveway and on the street. I finally grasped why it was so dangerous to drive on snow days if this is what was on the road beneath!
We drove to the hotel a couple of miles away, and carted my planties inside out of the cold. We then proceeded to stay up waaaaayyyy too late working on trivial things. I had been making little videos through Snap-Chat in an attempt to document our trip and to share it with family as we went (posted at the end of this blog). But the app was struggling! The deal is, after 24-hours, Snap-Chat starts to delete your "stories" or videos that you have uploaded...and I wanted so badly to download my full-day's video before parts of it were deleted, but nothing was working. Eventually I found a solution that got the job done...but it was really late/early. And I was grumpy and tired. When I woke up the next morning, I discovered that there must have been a glitch last night - Snap-Chat worked fine. Even though some of my stories appeared to be deleted by this point, they still managed to download on to my phone and all my struggles and worries throughout the night were in vain. I was bummed again.
Day 3
Leaving the hotel at this point is now where we experience our first blast of cold. Like...COLD. Like...I-want-to-die-right-now-COLD. Utah definitely gets cold - having lived in Logan for a few years, I thought I was prepared for what everyone had warned us about. But NOTHING could have prepared us for that. IT HURT to walk outside. The windchill is brutal in the Midwest...and my concern for my planties went up exponentially.
We crossed into Iowa a few minutes later with a total of five more hours to drive until we reached our destination. All things considered, this trip was passing by quickly!
We ate a Denny's that had stained glass windows with cows on them. That was cool...and unique...and seemingly Iowan.
It was lovely to drive through Iowa with its endless rolling hills. The road follows the curvature of the land and rises and falls with the hills, rather than cutting through it. It was nice...and maybe a little headache inducing at the same time. But definitely beautiful.
And before we knew it, we had reached our destination of Coralville, Iowa!!!
We stayed at a Hampton Inn in Omaha, and it was very posh and not overly priced. So naturally, we decided to stay in a Hampton Inn again here in Coralville...and we were less than enthused about our hotel stay this time around...
We got my car off the U-Haul dolly (and found my front Aggie's license plate had gone missing...?) and returned the dolly to the nearest location. We were both pretty tired at this point and Bill was feeling less than stellar. We picked up a Domino's pizza and stopped at a Wal-Green's for some medicine so that we could go back and crash for the night in our hotel.
The thermostat in our hotel room was stuck at 80 degrees. Despite how frigid and awful cold it was outside, one cannot sleep comfortably in such a warm room. So maintenance came in and we got moved to the next room over. The windows whistled from the wind. Every time the heater turned on, a sneeze-fest ensued. The tiles in the bathroom were all cracked. Oh! And our pizza was cold by now and the rooms had no microwaves. This hotel room cost more than our room in Omaha, and things were less than awesome here. But really, we were too tired to care anymore. We had made it here and that was all that mattered.
Day 4
I woke up the next morning to get ready for Sunday and a couple of the leaves on my planties were shriveling up and dying...oh no! My planties just needed to make it through our three-hour block of church and then we would be at our extended-stay hotel!
We went to church with a lovely ward that was reminiscent of our married student ward. As Iowa City is a college town, families are always coming and going and everyone seems very academic and knowledgeable. They were very nice! Luckily it happened to be their ward conference, so Bill and I got to stay with one another through all three blocks of church. Nice!
Coming out of church we were hit with that painful cold all over again. Excruciating pain hit the tops of my feet which were exposed to the cold winter air. *Note to self: wear boots.
We went back to the Hampton Inn to grab my car, and we were off to drive a few blocks to the Residence Inn. My car's windows were caked with grime from the roads. I wasn't worried about not having tinted windows anymore. Nobody could see into my car and know that half my closet was in there!
Off we went down the street, me following closely behind Bill, when suddenly we were pulling off to the side of the road. I was confused. Bill turned on his hazards and hopped out of the Trailblazer. I turned on my hazards and quickly learned that everything in my car very frozen. My hazard lights wouldn't stay on without me pushing on the button at all times. I had no idea what was going on!
It then became clear that a couple was stranded on the side of the road and needed help getting down the road to their hotel. Bill was eager to get out his tow straps and give them some help. Meanwhile, the gal from the car came over to me and I noticed that their license plates are from Minnesota. That became even more obvious when she called her boss to tell them that "some guy was here and helping them oot." It made me smile...but I also felt bad realizing she was standing out in that frigid cold air and I had absolutely no room to let her come sit in my car! Bill and the other guy in the car got everything hooked up just right and we pulled them down the street to the Super 8. By then the gal's boss had found us and joined our long train of cars with hazards on as we all took turns turning into the parking lot.
When the event was done and over with, we were finally able to check into our home sweet home for the next month or so. And due to poor planning on our part, we headed over to the Olive Garden for our Sunday meal. I'm sad to say that those three hours in church did my planties in. They look so sad. I have no idea if they'll be able to make a comeback, but I'm hopeful!
The hotel room is cute and convenient for many things. Inconvenient for others - but I was just glad we were one step closer to finding the ground beneath our feet once more!
Here are the short videos from each day of our travel:
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Here are the short videos from each day of our travel:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
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