Crazy Trip - Nice new Friends

Hal and I arrived at Missy and Clark's last night after a very interesting day of travel.  We traveled all the way to Sidney, NE the first day, anticipating arriving in SL in the early afternoon.  We checked the weather and road conditions on the web before we left and things looked pretty good (we were a little concerned because it had snowed in SL the day before and the storm was moving NE, but it looked to have gone out of the way).  We drove to Laramie and the roads were all really good.  We were almost through Laramie, when the traffic came to a complete standstill.  As we worked our way forward, we found a sign that said that I-80 was closed and that all traffic must exit.  Trucks began to park along the side of the road and we decided to do the same.  The stalled traffic was stretched for miles behind us.  We watched some vehicles exit and cars and trucks were parked along side every road close to the freeway just waiting for the freeway to open.  We soon learned that there had been a huge 20 vehicle accident ahead and that fuel had been spilled over the roadway and that it could be hours, maybe a day or 2 before traffic was allowed to go through.  

Not knowing what to do, we drove around town and stopped at a resturant for lunch where we saw the people who were parked behind us on the freeway (you become friends with those in the same situation) having lunch there as well.  They had a satellite connection on their computer and were looking at alternate routes to their destination.  After discovering where we were headed, they found us an alternate route (230 So. to Steamboat Springs and west on 40 to Vernal and then into SL), which we decided to take, even though it was going to add several hours to our trip.  

The drive went really well until we hit a pass where the roads were snow packed and the wind was blowing so hard that the snow was blowing all around and it looked like a snow storm had hit.  The driving was very tense and scary - Hal did a great job of driving, while I kept my head down reading a book to him, because if I looked at the road, I would get so nervous and tense.   The whole time we were driving through this mess, we kept asking ourselves, "Did we do the right thing coming this way?  I-80 is probably open by now and the traffic is flowing smoothly." After 8 1/2 hrs. of driving we arrived in SL at 10:30 pm.  After checking the web this morning, I discovered that I-80 is still closed in several spots through Wyoming, so if we had waited in Laramie until it opened, we still would be there instead of here holding this new little doll.  (She's adorable, by the way and oh, so little.)  Another thing that we found out was that during the 20 vehicle accident - there was a fire that resulted from the spill and damaged the road surface.  Boy, are we happy that we took the southern route - thanks to our unknown friends.