The trip that should have taken 4 hours

We hope that everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving Holiday!  We sure did aside from the fact that most of us were sick with a chest cold for most of it, we had a fun time visiting family and eating lots of turkey.

Erik and I are both from Grand Junction, CO which is about 4 hours (by car) west of Denver.  I was going to have Erik tell this story because he is a much better story teller than I, but he is very busy these days so it is left up to me.  

We left Grand Junction about 9:30 am, and were hoping to be home by about 2:30 or 3:00.  We knew it was snowy on the pass, and it always takes a little longer when there is snow or ice on the roads.  Well, about 4 or 5 miles before Eisenhower tunnel, we are at a complete stand still (lines of cars).  This was probably about 1:30.  During this time, it continues to snow pretty hard, and the temperature keeps dropping.   If our car keeps moving, we are doing ok, but as we sit there hour after hour the roads keep getting icier and icier.  Finally when they decided to close I-70 to the tunnel and let all the cars through, our van does not want to climb the pass, I mean we are burning rubber.  This was about 5:30 or 6, so we had been at a complete stop for about 4 hours (or moving maybe an inch or two).  Extremely frustrated Erik pulls off to the side of the road, because we are not going anywhere.  The kids are hungry, thirsty and cranky especially Kendall.  

To help everyone keep their mind off the situation ,we played games with the kids.  I called 911 because I didn't know who else to call, an apparently that's what everyone else was doing as well.  With the poor reception on our phone we managed to get a hold of my mother in law who paid for a tow truck to rescue us (there were so many tow trucks rescuing people that night).  By the time our tow truck came which was about an hour and a half later he was carrying two cars because the state trooper told him he had to get those cars first....But ours is paid for!!!!  We totally got jipped out of our tow truck...Can you believe?!

It was beginning to feel like we would have to sleep on the side of this stupid mountain.  We were not prepared for that.  The cdot vehicles were towing people off, but they were going in order, and conveniently people kept stalling out right in front of us leaving us to wait for who knows how long.  Finally, cdot was approaching us, and yet another car was getting in front of us, but Erik got out and gave the cdot worker our sad story, he said: "we have been sitting here for 2 hours waiting to be rescued, we have 3 hungry kids in the car, and this guy just pulled in front of us...please help us"  That worked, and we were finally rescued.  He pulled us to the top of the mountain where we were able to get right behind the snow plow/salt truck and safely make it down the hill.  We finally made it home after 8:30pm...11hours for what should have been a 4 hour trip.  I was never so happy to walk through my front door!  :)