12/15-12/16 Two Days on the Road

We started driving back to Washington this morning, planning to stop at Twin Falls for the night. However, we both felt strong enough to push forward, so we began taking turns driving and sleeping.

This trip has been particularly challenging for me because I’m not used to driving a stick shift. To make things even harder, I’ve had to drive it while towing a U-Haul trailer. There were moments when I almost lost my composure multiple times. In Utah, a huge deer jumped right in front of my car while I was driving 70 mph, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest.

By the time we reached Oregon, it was the middle of the night, and the roads were covered in heavy snow. While climbing a steep incline, we completely lost traction, and the car wouldn’t move. Stuck in the dark and freezing cold, we felt pretty desperate. All we could do was pray. Then Riley suddenly remembered we had two heavy-duty tow straps. Right there on the spot, we improvised snow chains out of them. Here’s a picture of the DIY solution.

To our amazement, those sketchy-looking snow chains worked! They got us out of the icy mountain pass. But as we continued driving, we noticed the dashboard lights had stopped working, and the car seemed underpowered, one of the spark plugs might not have been functioning properly. Unfortunately, the homemade chains also damaged the ABS brake lines.

Despite these challenges, nothing was severe enough to stop us. We kept praying and focused on taking one step at a time. After more than 30 hours on the road, we finally made it home.

Thank you, Lord, for always going before us, protecting and guiding us on this long journey back.