Let's see some snow!

This picture was taken on the 22nd at 11:39 pm:

On Christmas Day at noon, that same place (notice that the railing is no longer visible):

And here is what was left of the cars at noon:

And it's been snowing since then too. It's now 5:00pm and the snow has just kept coming.

But here was our living space Christmas morning. We cut down the tree Christmas Eve afternoon. As it was 12 degrees out and snowing we didn't spend too much time looking. The tree's trunk has some issues with straightness so we did the best we could.

Merry Christmas!

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Megan went to take a shower this morning. When she got out she tried to get into her room to find the door locked. Not just an ordinary privacy lock with a paper-clip unlocker on the outside. A full on key required. So I tried to pick it with no luck, and we talked to the management person who was annoyed and probably very unhappy to have us as tenants here. She has no keys to the bedroom, the owners have no keys, and the maintenance guy is in Utah for the holidays. So no help there. After trying a few more time to pick it (I was able to rake the pins, but I didn't have any decent tensioning device), I got a butter knife and pried away the thin piece of molding, then just pushed the latch open. Luckily, I was able to do this without damaging the wood. So now we're into that the bedroom again.

Bryce has been on the phone with the insurance company. The truck had not been insured previously because they were trying to sell it. So they had called to get it insured before the trip. The agent suggested they do a 2 week temporary policy which is what Bryce agreed to. Now the insurance company is claiming that no policy was taken out and the truck was uninsured at the time of the accident. So that's a barrel full of fun.

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You might have thought that things were kind of obnoxious and that that would be as bad as we would have to deal with. You'd be wrong.

Let's do this one pictorially. So we stayed the night at my Aunt Karen's house in Chubbuck, Idaho. We found that it had snowed several inches during the night. My mom went to the store to buy more groceries. When we finally were getting ready to leave again my Aunt and Uncle insisted we leave the Subaru there and take their Suburban. Much larger, higher clearance and still has 4-wheel drive. So we decided to accept that offer and loaded things up and headed out. This is what things looked like as we pulled away from their house:

Not too terrible, but definitely not pleasant. It wasn't too long before we passed the first of several vehicles slid off the road:

We managed to get to Rexburg where we met up with Megan and Chad (they left in the morning from Chubbuck so Chad could get to work). We loaded in the luggage that had been transferred to their van (Mollie's and my luggage). That was a mess, but we got it done and were on the road again. Here is what US-20 was looking like:

The snow was a mess, but don't worry, school was still in session:

The roads got "better" though as we got into the National Park:

And it was nice and warm outside:

Finally we arrived:

The fun wasn't over yet though. Evan's flight made it to SLC all right and Bryce picked him up and started heading up. They reached the edge of Pocatello when they hit a patch of black ice, slid across the road and rolled the truck onto its side in the median: spilling the cargo of luggage, groceries, and Christmas presents all over. So that was awesome. They didn't get injured, but the truck is totaled. They believe they were able to gather up all the cargo. Evan's phone was destroyed. He's probably loving this trip.

But the fun continues!!!

While dealing with this new fun Sawyer came walking out of the bathroom with an empty box of rat poison, with some in his hand and some in his mouth. So then we got to call Poison Control. The National Poison Control hot-line is location aware, and Erin's phone (from Utah) went to the Utah center which didn't answer the phone. Megan called (CT phone) and got the CT center which picked up immediately. The operator said that Sawyer would have needed to have eaten 4 teaspoons to be dangerous, so he should be fine, but that was a party as well.

IT'S NOT OVER YET!

A little more time goes by and Megan finds a dead mouse in the corner of the loft (ok, so this isn't so bad... but it's all just building up, making us all stressed out).

Michael's flight got in to SLC just fine and he was able to rent a RAV4. He started driving and got through Ogden before we finally got him on the phone to tell him to stop anywhere for the night. So now he's staying at a hotel in Tremonton.

So this has been awesome thus far. The plan now is for a vehicle from here to drive back down to Pocatello and pick them up tomorrow once the sun comes out a little and melts the ice.

I tried to warn my Aunt and Uncle that they would "rue the day" when they tried to help the Dickerson family; they are starting to learn how true a statement that was. Evan and Bryce are with them for the night and all of our cargo is at their house somewhere.

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This party has started off as well as only a Dickerson family party can.

We moved our departure date up a day to Sunday in an attempt to avoid some of the heavy snow that was supposed to come in Monday. Originally planning to leave at 10, but pushed back to noon, and then left around 2. Two cars arrived in Pocatello at Aunt Karen's house safely. Evan's plane was delayed 5+ hours while they sat on the tarmac. Then got diverted around weather and missed the last flight out of Dallas (his layover) so he's stuck there for the night.

The weather in SLC is supposed to be terrible tomorrow so the likelihood of either him or Mike getting in isn't looking good. Bryce stayed in Provo and was going to pick up Evan when his flight got in. Now he's still in Provo and will need to drive up through the terrible weather tomorrow or remain in Provo another day or so.

Chad came down to pick up Megan and they were going to stay in Rexburg for the night. They went to leave and their car battery is dead.

This is how Dickerson Family vacations work. Always. Which is why our family motto is "Never try anything new, you'll just be disappointed."

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The semester is over now. I had my finals on Tuesday morning and Thursday night. The finals felt like they went fine. The one I had on Thursday is already graded, 91.9, so that's fine with me. I also got a 99 on the final draft of my semester paper for that class.

I picked up Mom and Dad from the airport on Tuesday afternoon. The roads were alright until I got to I-215, then it was a disaster. Very stressful. We drove by several head-on collisions on the way back (on one side of the highway!). So apparently people were spinning around and slamming into each other. Not fun.

On Thursday I drove Jess up to the airport so she could fly home to Dallas. The roads were pretty good for that drive as well, until I-215 again when it started snowing. Not nearly as badly as Tuesday, but unpleasant anyways. Her flight ended up being delayed about an hour, but she got out just fine. I went home and graded finals for about 3 hours.

So it's been an exciting vacation so far. We're heading up to Idaho on Monday. It's supposed to snow everywhere along the way, so that will be interesting.

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Last night we had a Christmas party at our house. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. We did have a whole bunch of people show up though, it was a blast. Lots of people we haven't seen in months. I made wassail and cocktails weenies to uphold the Dickerson family traditions. They were both a big hit. Despite some issues getting the flavor of the wassail just right I was able to remedy the situation and it tasted great. The weenies started out at a big disadvantage. Currant jelly and mustard doesn't actually smell very good. But once it was heated up, mixed together, and filled with weenies it was better and people enjoyed them. I'm surprised how much of both was actually consumed. I do have extra weenies that didn't get tossed in the pot and the incredible quantity of wassail made (partially due to increases from fixing the flavor) extra, so I'll get to enjoy Christmas Eve traditions a second time before actual Christmas Eve.

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Sometimes leaving later will actually cause you to arrive earlier than you otherwise would have. Today we have an anecdote of why that can be the case.

I was driving to campus as I do every day. Driving the same car, on the same streets, in the same freezing cold. But today, something would be different about my drive. Had I left 1 minute earlier or 1 minute later my drive would have been exactly like it always is. It is for this reason that leaving later can cause you to arrive earlier. Even just 1 minute later and I would have arrived on campus 20 minutes earlier than I did.

(How do you like my build up? it's almost like I'm a writer or something.)

I was driving East on 500 N approaching the intersection with University Avenue. The long line of cars in the center lane told me the light would soon be changing to green. Luckily there were no vehicles waiting to turn left yet, and the car in front of me and I pulled into the left turn lane. I'm a good 30 feet behind that car and we're slowing down for the light. In the center lane amidst the line of cars is a large delivery type truck. Big, boxy, no windows to see through it. So it was a surprise to me (and even more so for the car in front of me, I imagine) when from in front of this truck a bicyclist appeared. The car in front of me was just rolling past the front of said truck as this occurred.

The cyclist was moving too quickly for his surroundings and was just as unaware of the car coming up alongside the truck as the car was unaware of the cyclist coming around the front. No surprise here that there elapsed a very brief amount of time before the bicycle was busted up and the cyclist lying on the ground. Like a fool the cyclist was not wearing a helmet, though today mercy would shine upon him and prevent his head from contacting anything hard.

I, however, was no fool. The moment my brain finished processing what had happened I was on my phone with a 911 operator. Not knowing how bad the cyclist was I figured this was probably the best course of action from my position. The driver was actually fairly intelligent about the situation and flicked on his hazard lights and got out to help the cyclist. Another car stopped to check on his condition. So while this was being attended to I just popped my car in park and turned on my hazard lights as well.

The cyclist was back on his feet rather quickly. And was very lucky to not have a head injury or a shattered ankle; the pedal on his bike was destroyed, so there wasn't much left to protect his ankle and foot from being smashed. Since the cyclist was up and about the emergency vehicles came in without sirens blaring. Before they arrived the driver was loading the bike into his car and apparently planning to drive the cyclist home. So I got out and told them to stick around and instead we pulled off the road into the parking lot of Cherry Lane Keepsakes.

An officer arrived (with only 4.5 fingers on his right hand!) and started the process. Soon after, a firetruck and ambulance arrived to check on the cyclist; who appears to be fine except for a bloody knee. Now it's time for all of us to write up our statements about what happened. So I got my paper and sat in my car to fill it out. Of course the only pen I have is frozen solid and it's still about 28 degrees outside (and my car didn't have time to warm up yet). So it's a bit chilly trying to write under those conditions, breathing on my pen every 3 words to keep the ink flowing. My training as a theoretician and scientific writer served me well in describing the events as accurately as I could without injecting purely subjective statements as facts. I turned in my statement and was on my way, arriving on campus 20 minutes later than I had planned, and now 20 minutes late for class, but whatever.

So, now I can add to my list of unusual things I've done in my life:
Provided a Witness Statement

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