Close Call

This past weekend Caleb flew to Salt Lake City for a JRC Conference. He really enjoyed being there and hearing the speakers, just like last year. He was able to visit a little bit of family, as well as go to his first live session at the Salt Lake Temple. He left on Thursday night and was to come home on Sunday afternoon. His flight arrived around 3:15 at the Kansas City airport. The plan was for me to leave around 2:00 to pick him up from the airport. The plan quickly changed when we got out of church at 12:00 because there was a blizzard outside. The roads were straight ice and you really couldn't see that far in front of you. I almost wrecked on the way home from church because the roads were so slick; it was like my brakes weren't working.


We decided we would have to leave as early as we could to go to the airport. The earliest we could get away was about 1:30. With a prayer to keep us safe, we left in the terrible weather to see if we could make it to the airport in time to pick up Caleb. (For those of you who don't know, the airport is 1 hour and 15 minutes away from our house.) The weather was awful, and we were going about 30 miles an hour on the freeway. There were cars off the road everywhere.


We had been on the road for about an hour when we had to stop and pay the toll along the way. The lady at the toll booth told me there was a bad accident ahead, and that we should turn around and find a different way to our destination. With no map, and no GPS, I didn't have a clue how to get to the airport any other way. So we just hoped for the best, and thought maybe it won't take that much longer. Continuing forward, we braved the traffic. The weather had also improved quite a bit now, and the roads were mostly just wet so I hoped for the best. After driving for about 3 miles past the toll booth, we came to a complete stop, and stayed there for about 2 hours in the exact same spot. The police weren't letting any traffic through on either sides of the freeway. When we were finally let through, we saw 21 cars off the road that we counted just on our side. About a mile past all the wreckage, we counted another 29 cars piled up on the other side of the freeway. That side of the freeway was completely closed down.


I finally arrived to the airport at 5:30, a good 4 hours later. On our regular route home the freeway was closed, so we had to find a different way. We didn't get home until 8:30 that night. A trip that should have taken 2 and a half hours, ended up taking 7. After seeing all the wreckage, we were just so grateful that we weren't among all the accidents.

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When we got home that night, we learned there was a 40 car pile-up on one side of the freeway, and some pretty bad accidents on the other. If I would have left my house about 15 minutes earlier, I'm afraid I would be among those numbers. We are still counting our blessings.
~There were fireman on top of cars cutting out windows to get people out.