Hello from Lehi, Utah! :)

So I’ve been slacking and haven’t written as much from this trip as I have from the last one… but it’s better late than never, eh?

I’ve been driving for about 6 days now. I stopped in State College, PA, to visit a friend… and then Cleveland to visit another one of my best friends. Because of that, I ended up taking the northern route to get to L.A…. meaning I hit Chicago, Nebraska, Wyoming, etc.

Chicago’s a pretty city (from what I saw)… the people didn’t seem to be the friendliest, but at least I got to go there and experience it.

Nebraska was AWESOME!! People that I met there were so freaking nice!

Wyoming – that state hated me. I thought I’d take an extra 30 minutes and go via Wyoming instead of Colorado.. but that ended up not being the case at all. It was snowing there (which I knew would happen, but I didn’t think it would be that bad) and the ridiculously heavy winds were thrashing my superlight Mitsubishi Eclipse around the road. At one point, I did 3 360 degree turns in a row and landed a foot from a median. As soon as I started moving, I realized I was about 30 seconds away from an SUV. That was RIDICULOUSLY lucky moment #1.

(Now – before you ask why I didn’t just pull over and stop when this happened… I DID, and I asked people at a travel center if the winds would stop the next day. They said it was going to be at least a week!)

The wind was nuts. As I was driving, it looked like hundreds of smoke bubbles were on the road because the winds were picking up the snow and torpedo-ing it all over the place.

There were cars and trucks stopped all over… one Penske truck was actually SPLIT IN TWO. All the contents of the truck were spilled on the snow.

Naturally, a few hours later, I ended up spinning around again. This time I did a few 360s, a whole bunch of snow was thrown up into my windshield, and I ended up trapped in my car in a snow bank/ditch.

Me being the nerd I am, I thought I could get out and shovel my way out (since my car’s packed to the brim with clothes, Brian suggested that I put socks on my hands and get to work. In retrospect, this is really funny).

By the time I tried to get out of my car, highway patrol came and told me there was no way I could do anything myself… and I realized that my car door wouldn’t open anyway.

I had to call a tow truck driver who came and told me that the wind even thrashes HIM around – and his truck weighs 4x my car. He also said a lot of the roads were closed because of how bad it was. Hahaha… he ended up giving me his card in case I needed him again. Talk about encouragement.

It was so interesting to talk to him though. I was sitting in his passenger seat and we spotted another car that got stuck in a ditch. Some random passerby was helping him out with a chain, and the tow truck driver said, “Those f*ckers… taking my money from me.” After I recoiled from the surprise of that, he complained again and talked about how he needed more Triple A tickets. It’s just so interesting to hear the mindframe of different people that you come in contact with…

(And btw, RIDICULOUSLY lucky moment #2 is the fact that both me and my car came out unscathed.)

I digress. After a few other non-stellar Wyoming moments, I finally got out and made my way to friendly, non-windy Utah, where I sit in my comfortable bed. :)

I’ve gotta say though – I’m a really lucky person. As soon as I landed in the ditch, I thought there might be some ninja trick or something that I could use to reverse out of it, and I immediately thought of 5 different guys that I could call that wouldn’t treat me like an imbecile (even though, again, in retrospect, I totally was being one.)

Haha… and I was talking to a friend the other day about “best friends”, and he asked me if I had one… and again, I immediately thought of a few different people. If I end up having a traditional wedding (I guess I’ll need the boyfriend to get started on that, eh? ;))… there’s 5 different Maid Of Honors that I’d have, because I couldn’t choose amongst them.

In short – I’m insanely thankful for my friends. :)

Annnyway, guess I’m going to wrap up some things on the to-do list and get going… in case I don’t post again soon, HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE!