What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas — Especially If You Don’t Make It Home!
This is a story of how I conquered a fear.
Around 9:00 pm on Friday, January 28, 2016, one of my good friends called me up and asked if I wanted to go on a road trip from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas the next morning. His wife had just bought a new car and needed to pick it up from the dealership. I agreed.
We went down to Vegas in his car in cold but clear weather, spent the weekend doing Vegas-y s***, picked up the car, and drove back separately; I drove his old car back as he drove the new one.
The weather went from sunny (of course) to snow flurries as we got further north, and my friend got a bit further ahead than I did. About ten or twenty miles south of the small town of Fillmore, Utah, my friend called me and said there was a massive traffic jam ahead. Google Maps (which I always use for this exact reason) also advised me to take a detour, so I got off the freeway at a tiny no-stoplight town called Meadow. My plan was to take Utah Route 100, US Rt. 50, Utah Rt. 136, US Rt. 6, and finally Utah Rt. 132 before getting back on the freeway at a town called Nephi.
Well, the weather went from bad to worse, visibility went to nearly zero, it was now dark, and I was crawling along at about half the speed limit — 30 mph (50 km/h) in a 60-mph zone. I realized I had to pee badly before I got to Nephi. (There were no open businesses anywhere along the route.) I pulled over and ended up getting stuck in a snowdrift about 15 miles (25 km) west of Nephi on Rt. 132. After desperately trying to get out on my own by rocking back and forth, I realized I was stuck.
I also realized that my phone, which had been plugged into USB the whole time, had been draining faster than it had been charging and was almost dead. I called 911, but my reception was weak enough that they couldn’t hear me. And I hadn’t thought to bring a jacket. I literally thought I was going to die.
Fortunately, I was able to flag down a passing vehicle, and with the help of several more passersby, I eventually got unstuck — after realizing I had left the traction control on. D’oh!
I got to Nephi, plugged in my phone, called my friend, and told him I was safe. (He had gotten pretty close to calling Highway Patrol!) I then drove to his place at school zone speeds on the freeway, gave thanks to whatever divine being(s) brought me back to Salt Lake alive, ate some home-cooked Indian food (my friend is from India), and collapsed on his couch.
(I also told my boss and team lead that there was no way in H*** I was going to take calls in blizzard conditions the next day. My team lead, who lived in the Arctic snowscape known as Phoenix, had the audacity to ask why I was staying home when a coworker further north was running calls in clear weather. I wanted to tell him where to shove it, but that’s another story.)
After nearly a year and a half of that experience haunting me just a little bit, I drove back down to Meadow and re-drove that entire route from Meadow to Nephi. Of course, it was during the day, in crystal-clear conditions. I brought a jacket, and I made sure I had plenty of air in my tires and my cell phone was fully charged. It was a beautiful and exhilarating drive. And it felt awesome.
Thank you to the kind strangers on Route 132 who saved my life that night. Now, thanks to confronting that fateful route again, the experience has not haunted me since. And I always make sure my phone stays charged, and I bring a satellite messenger with me on road trips.
