Keith and I got up at 3:30 am on Thursday for our epic journey of a three hour road trip to the airport, then three connecting flights to get us to Florida. And we made it!
We didn't expect that it was going to snow at all on that day and when we looked outside and saw that about an inch of fresh snow was on the ground and it was still coming down, we knew we had to get on the road ASAP! As we climbed into the mountains the snow was coming down even harder.
The trip was going slow and steady until everything got turned on it's side. As we were coming around the bend, still high up in the mountains, the car started to slide. It kept sliding until it bounced off a snow bank and flipped onto the driver's side. This all happened in the slowest of slow motion-I almost didn't spill my tea.
Keith was kind of sitting on the driver's side window as I was braced against the seat and the dashboard, kind of hanging in the air. With a surprising lack of screaming or crying (I think it's called shock) we did the 'You're OK, I'm OK' then quickly moved on to the 'How the hell do we get out of here'. Opening the door was not a good idea since we had gravity working against us and it just came crashing back down, but the windows still worked so we rolled down the passenger side window. I half hopped/got pushed out by Keith and he followed soon after-with my hat, gloves and a blanket. At this point we tried to push the car over. We made a valiant effort, but it was lodged in the snow. (And for those of you who want a picture of this, sorry, that just was just about the last thing on my mind at this point.)
Knowing getting towed was probably the only way out, Keith got on the phone to some friends to see if we get someone out there soon. I was doing my best at looking pathetic on the side of the road and apparently it worked very well. First one truck pulled over, then another! This is 6am, in the middle of nowhere, it's freezing and it's snowing-I really love these guys! We had a plan of all four of us trying to push the car over by the time Keith got off the phone. We all got up on the snow bank, held on to the roof rails and gave it our best-and it worked! One of the guys had obviously been in the situation before and told us that we should let the car sit for a couple minutes to get all the fluids drained back to where they should be. While we did that, Keith dug the back tires out of the snow with a giant roll of duct tape (you really can use it for anything!). He sat down, tuned the ignition, and the car started!
Our plan was to drive it towards the airport until it wouldn't drive any more and it got us all the way there. Not only that but we made it to our flight with time to spare. The rest of the day was a breeze, with all of our flight on time. We made it to Keith's dad's condo at around midnight.
It was time to get this vacation that almost never was started!
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