Road Trip Adventures, Part 1

Some time ago, DH and I planned to a trip to St. Louis to see friends and family. In the midst of getting everything ready, we learned Genius Kid wasn't getting leave after all. Such is the ways of military life.

Also in the middle of everything, DH's division was sold to another company. The new employer, based in Denver, wanted to have a company-wide face-to-face event.

The same week we were supposed to be in St. Louis.

DH and I looked at each other, then at the map. What if we went to St. Louis on Tuesday like we planned and simply drove out to Denver on Wednesday in time for the company-wide meeting on Thursday?

For those of you wondering why we didn't just fly, DH doesn't get on airplanes any more. He freely admits to his phobia. The last time he got on a plane was for his grandmother's funeral in 2002, but that was only because he couldn't make the drive from Houston to Toledo in time.

The new employer coughed up the money for everyone to stay at a downtown hotel, which was awesome foresight on whoever organized the event. It was essentially neutral territory for old and new employees to get a feel for each other.

The new employer also didn't have a problem with me tagging along since we were supposed to be on vacation. Denver turned into a work/research trip. I wrote on my NaNo project and did some research for Denver as the setting for a duology under the Alter Ego name.

Everything started off okay on Tuesday. We stopped to vote, picked up breakfast, and dropped off Bella at the doggie hotel on our way out of town. Other than road construction in Indiana and an accident in St. Louis itself, we made decent time. We had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant with our friends Becky and Tony and caught up with them.

Wednesday started as a gorgeous day, sunny and clear. Temperatures climbed into the high 60's as we crossed Missouri and the first half of Kansas. No sign of inclement weather on our path west according to the radar and news reports. We stopped for a decent lunch because we knew we wouldn't get into Denver until 11 p.m. local time.

After dark, the temps plummeted into the 30's. The real problems started about twenty miles before we reached the Colorado border. Spritz hit the windshield. When DH flipped the windshield wipers, the moisture smeared and stayed.

"Please tell me that's road mud and bug guts," I pleaded.

"It's not," DH said.

We cranked up the heat on the defrosters. I checked local weather while DH slowed his speed in the freezing rain. Nothing was showing up on the radar until we reached the border. A little splotch of pink showed up on the radar right in the middle of our path on the interstate. We decided to go on to see if we could get out of it.

Conditions disintegrated fast. DH followed a semi. The experienced truckers know what they're doing. Speed dropped some more until we were all crawling along about 30 miles per hour. Then we and the semi in front of us started sliding all over the place.

This was about 9 p.m.CST. We were nowhere near any hotels. We followed the semi to an exit and pulled into the same convenience store at a little burg called Stratton. The store had a massive parking lot, and there were already a dozen tractor-trailers parked there.

We went inside to use the restroom and get some snacks. More and more travelers pulled into the lot.

As DH and I debated what to do, a man named Tim asked where we were headed. When we said Denver, he shook his head. He worked for CDOT and had been called into work three hours early. "You're not going to make it to Denver tonight."

The story was the same for all the locals who came in. The damn freezing rain came out of nowhere, and the roads were covered with black ice. DH checked for local hotels, but the closest ones were sixty miles away and filling up fast.

The husband of one of the clerks also worked for CDOT. She texted him about the travelers pulling over. He called her and said everything had gone to shit. He was having difficulty staying on the interstate himself as he salted.

That was the deciding factor for a lot of us. We would sleep in our vehicles and wait for morning. The clerks made sure everyone had a chance to use the rest room and had enough fuel to last us through the night before they closed up at 10 p.m.

I bought a fleece hoodie because I didn't feel like rooting around our luggage in the freezing rain for something warmer. I also bought some CBD gummies with melatonin in the hopes they would help me sleep.

DH and I sat in our car. The parking lot was on enough of a rise we could see east side of I-70. More truckers pulled into the parking lot over the next hour. When it filled, the truckers lined up along the median to wait out the weather.

A fire truck and an ambulance from Stratton headed west. Another ambulance headed east. Our hearts stopped for an instant when the eastbound ambulance slid on ice, but the driver regained control. Once his flashing lights disappeared, there was no one, and I mean no one, on the interstate.

DH ran our engine for five minutes while we adjusted our seats. With my overshirt as a pillow, my jacket as a blanket, and the hoodie's pocket to keep my hands warm, I was fairly comfortable. DH turned off the engine, and we fell asleep in our very own ice cave.

TO BE CONTINUED...