Stuck in a Snow Drift

Tonight, Morgan and I decided to go on a little drive. Rexburg is not very large and, as it is in Idaho, there is farmland nearly everywhere surrounding the perimeters. So when you decide to go on a drive, and take a few turns here and a few turns there... you really can get lost.

No, we didn't get lost - but we did wander out pretty far. Only a few miles out from his apartment and we already couldn't see anything except for great expanses of farmland and rolling hills of white. We were trying to find stations that played Christmas music but just ended up listening to country (only because I liked it), and then some Top 40 station.

As we went further and further, we found ourselves progressively deeper into a cloud of fog - and knowing less and less where we actually were. Morgan took a right at a fork in the road to try and avoid the fog because it was a little disconcerting, and for a short stretch we successfully avoided it.

Eventually the fog caught back up with us - and as we followed the dips in the hills and passed several agricultural storehouses, we decided that we should turn back. We waited until we'd passed a few storehouses (big, dark, looming buildings - out of the middle of nowhere, and with fog suffocating us? Pretty sure I didn't want to slow down next to one of those!) to turn around, and then found another long stretch of road without anything in front of us and only a couple of storehouses behind us in the distance. The road was slightly too narrow to make the u-turn in one fell swoop, so Morgan reversed after turning a little - and the truck slid further back than he expected, sinking the back tires into an incredibly deep snow bank.

Doomed, I tell you.

I was trying not to laugh but I couldn't keep it in so I let it out. :) In fact, I couldn't stop laughing even after I got home. I thought it was hilarious that we had gotten ourselves into this - stranded in a snow bank, out in the middle of who-knows-where, and fog surrounding us to cap off the eerie, isolated feeling of being stuck and stranded. I saw it as a fun adventure, but Morgan was a little (understatement!) :) stressed. He tried everything to get the truck out - pushing it, having me accelerate while he pushed (which was not easy - he still hasn't taught me how to drive stick yet so it was very much a trial-and-error process), fiddling with chains for the tires, scraping away the snow from the tires... but we had no luck. We said a prayer but still didn't know what to do.

The night of all nights that he doesn't have his cell phone on him, we need to contact Nolan (his roommate who has a super huge truck that could pull us out). I quickly hatched an elaborate plan to get a hold of Nolan in a slightly roundabout way (since I didn't have his number), and called my friend and FHE brother Alex who lives within the same apartment complex as Morgan. I called Alex, told him to run down to Morgan's apartment to get Nolan, and then talk to Nolan about what was going on so he knew which direction to head. Morgan gave Nolan directions, and then all we could do was wait.

Morgan was antsy, but I was laughing and enjoying every bit of it. Pretty soon though, I convinced Morgan to lighten up a little and see the humor in it all. :) It's not every day you become honest-to-goodness stranded out in the middle of nowhere! I am so glad Nolan rescued us. What a night!!