Frozen

When I finally opened the door to my room last Sunday night, Sunday night had become Monday morning, and spring break was over. I spent the afternoon, evening, and night driving from Boise to Mount Angel, a trip that usually takes a smidge under eight hours by car. This drive took eleven.

The usual culprit for a delay between here and there is the Blues Mountains in Central Oregon, but besides a patch of thick fog, the roadways were smooth and temperatures above freezing. Driving at near the speed limit with two of my seminarian brothers, I thought we were in the clear after we passed Pendleton, but the adventurous trek back to seminary would continue for many hours.

In the Columbia River Gorge, the roadways started to freeze. We drove past four separate accidents with emergency lights flashing around us. I let the speedometer drop even though I didn't feel any slippage to that point. Slowly we crept at a steady 40-to-50-mile-per-hour pace, singing together and conversing. We counted down the mileage to Portland, and we skipped gas stops thinking it was better to get through the icy conditions first. Then we reached Hood River.

I have driven through this Gorge-side town dozens of times, but as I saw semis pull to the side and snow banks pile higher, I knew this time was different. We pulled off as well, debated about putting chains on the vehicle, checked the road report, and forged onward. A few minutes and a few slips up the hill, I veered to the shoulder, and we christened the set of chains I purchased in December. Thankfully my seminarian brother Stephen had put them on a car before because I was completely inexperienced, and the other seminarian in the vehicle, Frankie, is from Hawaii, so the situation was not one he had faced in paradise. With some cold hands and a few looks at an instructional video on my iPhone, we managed to secure the tires. We set off again. The only problem was that the iPhone wasn't with us. We had used it as a flashlight to see our way in the night, and when the screen had gone black, we forgot that the phone had been set in the snow. Oops.

With no smartphone and less than a quarter tank of gas, the ride was tense. We stayed at 15mph or less for about two hours from Hood River to Multinomah Falls, most of it through rugged ice caked on the roadway. Twenty or so vehicles sloshed through gingerly behind a semi, occasionally being passed by a fortunate motorist with four-wheel or all-wheel drive. The conditions finally seemed to clear for a few minutes, so we pulled off to remove the chains, which turned into a 45-minute endeavor because one had been attached improperly and had gotten ahold of the axel, which made it particularly difficult to remove, especially fumbling around blindly under the car along a dark roadway with impatient drivers zooming by. When we eventually escaped the chains, we sailed for about 15 minutes at 40mph when traffic stalled to a standstill. And still our gas tank was emptying.

I turned off the car. We sat for two, three, four minutes at a time. We moved a couple hundred feet. Car off. Wait. Turn the keys. Move a little more. Converge to one lane. Pass another accident. There were further roadway moguls to dodge once we found space to move until we passed Multinomah Falls. As we did, we seriously contemplated stopping for the night to wait out the storm and hopefully conserve our gas until we could safely reach Troutdale, the next place we could refuel. Thankfully, the temperature rose rapidly after Multinomah Falls and so did the speed of traffic. With plenty of fumes to spare, we glided gratefully into a Shell Station in Troutdale, filling the car's tank, emptying our own, and grabbing some 11:30 dinner at Taco Bell. The final leg to Mount Angel went swiftly, and we vacated the vehicle wearily knowing that Monday back on the hilltop was going to be long.

But we were safe. We survived the snow. We were grateful for the passageway home, discovering later that just outside of those tricky Blues Mountains a large pileup had closed Interstate 84 West an hour after we had passed safely through. Many were not as fortunate as we were.

Now I can laugh at the tension, the lost phone (I was due for an upgrade and purchased an iPhone 5C this week), the treacherous end to "spring" break, and the adventure endured. Such an occasion is quite a reminder to give thanks to the Lord for delivering my friends and me safely and for the abundance in our lives. I am immeasurably blessed.