Nancy and I had been looking forward to attending a University
of Wyoming football game this fall and the recent Cowboys-Fresno State game
looked ideal.
Several days
ahead of time, the forecast was good. I was not paying much attention to
weather or roads.
Plus we were
taking our three local grandsons to the game, Wolf, Hayden and Finis Johnson,
sons of our daughter Shelli Johnson and her husband Jerry.
Shelli and
Jerry were in California celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary
by attending a hilarious performance by the comic Brian Regan.
After a fun
week of taking care of the boys, we went to bed Friday night planning to get up
early and head to Laramie.
At 5:30 a.m.
Nancy woke me up. She is prone to migraine headaches but this one was
different, she said. Her pain was
excruciating. Was she having a stroke? When
it comes to health, I generally over-react.
I gave her one
of her ordinary migraine Sumatriptan pills but it seemed to have little
effect. We quickly got dressed and I gave
the boys the bad news. We probably were not going to the football game as I was
taking “mom mom,” as they know her, to the emergency room.
When I went
back to the bedroom to fetch her, Nancy was making the bed. “Well, you know, I
want the house to look nice,” she told me through half-closed eyes.
It was a
beautiful morning as we headed up to the hospital.
As I pulled in to the parking lot, she was feeling better.
“Let’s not go in. Maybe that pill really did the trick,” she said.
So, we sat
there for 20 minutes trying to decide what to do? Since it was early Saturday
we could not go to the local clinic and, we were sort of stalled in a twilight
zone between “do we or don’t we” walk through that door?
Finally, she said
she was fine and let’s go home. We drove
around town a little while just seeing if she really was better. She now seemed completely healed. She said we
should go to the game. What a difference
90 minutes plus a powerful pill can make.
We went home
and I rousted the boys. Time was short
now and we needed to hurry if we were going to get to Laramie. I thought our trip might take about three and
half hours since we would have to stop at Bob Luck’s newly remodeled McDonalds
for some breakfast on the way.
After that
stop, we headed out on highway 287 going southwest toward Laramie. We should make it right at game time.
In fact, the
roads were spectacular. I eased the car
past the 70 mph mark hoping none of our friendly Wyoming Highway Patrol
troopers were up this early.
We got to Jeffrey
City and the roads were dry. Beaver Rim
behind us had been spotty and I noticed the outside temperature was 21
degrees. Those small patches of ice on
the road could be slippery.
Then the
highway between Jeffrey City and Muddy Gap turned to pure ice. The wind was howling out of the south and it was
pushing my car around. My speed quickly dropped to 30 mph. There were no other vehicles on the road,
which seemed odd. Were we the only ones going to the game? Lots of folks should be on this road.
I pulled over
at the Split Rock rest area. I walked out on the roadway and the wind almost
blew me over. The surface was ice-packed.
My cell phone
would not get any service so I could not determine the conditions of the roads
ahead. We were now one-third of the way to Laramie.
My heart said
go.
My gut said no.
With a cloud
of disappointment dominating the inside of the car, we turned around and headed
home. Soon, we were on dry roads and I was kicking myself for being a pansy. It
was hard to face the boys. I had let them down because I was a chicken.
After we got
home, I checked the state’s roads on the WYDOT site and found out those icy
roads west of Muddy Gap extended all the way to Rawlins and Interstate 80 was
closed between the Carbon County line and Laramie. It was almost impossible to get to the
football game from any direction.
I had made the
right decision.
Just another
typical fall day in Wyoming.
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