A Thanksgiving To Remember

I will warn you ahead of time that this a quite a lengthy entry.  If you will continue reading this I promise you will be completely entertained. 

Several years ago it became a tradition to go to St. George over Thanksgiving for baseball tournaments.  It started with Kalen playing and eventually Braden.  This particular year was quite interesting.  We completely skipped dinner with my family and headed south. Of course we had to get gas and treats.  We spent more money on treats and hot dogs than we did on gas.  Apparently gas wasn't $4.00 a gallon back then. Arriving in St. George we were expecting something to be open for dinner.  Other than a gas station we found K-Mart was the only option.  The grocery selection is pretty grim.  So my two friends and I  used our imagination and gathered up what we could find to make the best nachos you could imagine.  Yes nachos for Thanksgiving Dinner!  On Friday we had 4 games to watch since Kalen and Braden were both playing.  As we were watching the last game Mason came running to us saying that he had 'snapped his bone'.  He said he and his friend Kobe were playing football with a pine cone and Kobe tackled him. He said his arm hurt but we couldn't see that anything looked wrong and couldn't really pinpoint where it hurt.  So he climbed up on Eric's lap and fell asleep for a little bit and he kept wiggling and moaning while he was asleep  so we could tell something was wrong.  We ended up taking him to the Emergency room and sure enough he had 'snapped his bone'.  His collar bone to be exact.  Mason was only 5 at the time and he was quite a trooper for the whole weekend hardly complaining at all. The broken bone and the great dinner was just the start of the issues to come.  The games were all played and Kalen's team made it to the championship game which were to be played on Sunday in St. George until it rained so hard that the streets were rivers and the games were moved to Mesquite.  Saturday night Kalen and Eric didn't feel so good but Kalen was ok in the morning.  So we drive 45 min. to Mesquite with a sick husband and a broken collar bone.  They lost the game so we headed home.  We knew a storm was coming in but we had no idea how bad it would be.  Around 4:00 we left St. George and headed home expecting the typical 4 hour drive.  It was smooth sailing till we hit Cedar City and it started snowing a little.  By the time we were about  10 miles outside of Beaver we came over a hill and the traffic was at a complete stop. The snow was coming down hard.  People were sliding off the road and stuck.  All you could see were brake lights for miles.  There was no place to even turn around.  We were stuck!  It was awful!!  It took 2 hours to drive those 10 miles!!  When we exited the freeway along with everyone else, the gas station parking lots were full, the streets were packed and there were no hotel rooms any where.  We had finally gotten hold of my mom and dad (there had been no cell phone service) and they told us if we could get to Filmore there was an Army Reserve Building that had been opened up as a shelter. So now I'm driving, Eric is sick in the passenger seat.  Thank goodness for the DVD player to entertain the kids.  Again it takes hours to get to Filmore.  At one point Eric had fallen asleep and when he woke up he asked where we were and you could still see the lights from Beaver behind us.  It took us 8 hours to get to Filmore!  It should have only taken 2.  We arrived in Filmore at the luxurious Army Reserve building.  We checked in and were given a sleeping bag and mat that who knows who has slept on and were told to find a place on the floor.  Imaging being in a very large school type gym with hundreds of random people snoring and coughing and sneezing and cots creaking and crackling.  Not exactly the set up for a good night sleep.  I ended up taking Mason to the van to sleep so he would be more comfortable.  It was freezing!!  He was warm and cozy in all the blankets but I was cold.  I would randomly drive around to get the heat going.  Eric sat on a bench in the restroom the whole night since he was still sick.  I think Kalen and Braden slept ok.  About 6 am after a wonderful night sleep we checked out and went home! After 4 years we can now laugh about this awful experience.  Hope you all get a good laugh and remember this story as you take your next road trip!!  Happy Thanksgiving!!