River Trip

Friday night a couple of my roommates and I decided to take a somewhat spontaneous trip up to Tuacahn in St. George, UT to see the show "Big River". Little did we know that this was not the only river we would encounter on our trip. We should have taken notes from Huck Finn and Jim during the musical on the benefits of traveling by raft.

Liz, Katie, and I enjoyed a lazy Saturday morning, a late IHOP breakfast, and then wandered around the outlets of St. George. By late afternoon we decided we should start heading back to Las Vegas. We watched the sky get darker and darker, so we were anticipating some rain on the drive home. I said a small prayer that we would not get caught in the storm as we drove through the Arizona gorge. This was the first miracle of the trip. It started sprinkling through the last mile of that narrow canyon. I got a strong impression that we needed to pray as we worked our way out of the canyon.

In less than 5 minutes from leaving the gorge, the downpour started. This was the first time that I've ever had to drive through the infamous desert flashflood rain. My windshield wipers were trying their best to keep up with the giant raindrops, but Mother Nature had to prove she was stronger than any man-made machine. Soon the entire freeway looked like the river we had seen in the play the night before. Cars were crawling along because visibility was so poor, the possibility of hydroplaning was great, and the wind wanted nothing more than to blow you off the road. At one point I had another strong impression to pull off the road. We sat on the side of the freeway for a few minutes watching the rain beat down around us and the desert landscape turn into a giant mudbowl. There was finally a break in traffic, so we continued on our journey once again driving though the freeway river.

A few minutes later a giant semi came flying past me. The next thing I know I am attempting to drive through a wall of water. I lost all visibility. My car started to slide. I couldn't see the lanes or the side of the road at all. I did my best to not panic or slam on my brakes. Finally the wave that engulfed my car receeded, and I noticed the next miracle. Traffic had been pretty heavy, but during that tense moment there happened to be no other cars around me. This was very good because I had drifted into the other lane without realizing it.

We were close to Mesquite, and we all felt that we should pull off at the next exit and wait out the storm. Once we forged some muddy streams flowing through a Walmart parking lot, I was happy to park my car and let my fingers release their grip on the steering wheel. We began to realize how bad this storm was when we noticed that the power was out throughout the whole city. Walmart was running on generators, and soon kicked us all out of the store because they were about to lose that backup power. The casinos across the street were also out of power. I began to wonder if the world was coming to an end because Walmart shut down and there were no flashing lights from casino marquees. It was a very eery feeling.

After taking refuge in Walmart as long as we could (we got a "friendly reminder" multiple times from Walmart employees telling us that we needed to leave as soon as possible), we worked our way across the parking lot back to our car. We had to walk through the muddy rivers that went halfway up my calves. We also had to watch out for grocery carts that were going air-born. We got back on the freeway once the rain began to let up. The wind still wanted to push me off the road most of the way back to Las Vegas, but at least I could see. There was the occasional tumbleweed as big as my car that would fly across the road, but again miraculously, it would happen seconds in front of where my car would have been.

So, I guess next time I'll listen to Huck and just bring a raft.