The Drive Home

The drive home was WORSE than the drive up! We caravaned back to Arizona with Aaron, Kaori, and Maggie. We left Murray at about 8:30 am Utah time (7:30 am Arizona time). We were driving back down I-15 through St. George and Las Vegas because Corey wanted to stop and see the new In-N-Out in St. George. After about three stops for cranky babies, bathroom breaks, and even car sickness, we were about 30 minutes from St. George when we blew a tire on the van. By the way, we blew a tire on the van on Monday, April 21st and got just the one replaced. Corey then blew a tire in his car on his way home from closing two nights later, and replaced all four of his tires, since they were all needing to be replaced. So, we blew another tire on the van just about two weeks later! Since it was Sunday, there wasn't much that was open. I spent the time in the car from the blowout to St. George calling 411 and trying to find a tire place that was open. We pulled into the St. George In-N-Out at about 1:30 pm and Corey dropped us off and left to get the tires replaced. Yes, tires. We didn't want to risk blowing another one between St. George and Phoenix, so we just replaced them all. They were all about 6 years old, though hardly worn, anyway. The rest of us ate at In-N-Out while Corey took care of the car, and then, about an hour later, he joined us and got his food to go. We finally left St. George, after getting gas, at about 3 pm.

When we get to Vegas, we take the wrong exit for the 93 to Kingman, the first exit before the strip instead of the second one after the strip. So we spend an extra 30-40 minutes driving through Henderson, stopping once for a bathroom break for Caleb and Westley. Then we get back on the road and have to fight all the traffic by the Hoover Dam. After the Hoover Dam, we lost Aaron and Kaori behind us somewhere. So we pulled off the road to wait. We waited and waited and waited. We were out of range for our phones, so we couldn't even call them. We kept trying though and finally got in range and found out that they had just stopped to feed Maggie. We were worried that something may have happened at security after the dam, so we were relieved that they weren't detained by that. We finally made it to Kingman around 5:30. We stopped at a Carl's, Jr. to eat and stretch our legs. After that stop, we continued on our way down the 93. It was already dark and we were still several hours away. After the 93, we were supposed to go through Sun City and get on the 101 down to the 10, but we took the 303 by mistake and that put us on the 10 freeway 20 miles or so west of where we wanted to be, just west enough to get stuck in construction traffic. We finally made it to Mesa at about 11:30 pm! It was a LONG day!

I'm just glad that we were on I-15 before hitting St. George when the tire blew. If we had been south of St. George in the Virgin River Gorge, or south of Las Vegas, we would have had a lot more trouble finding a place to get the tire changed or it could have been dangerous (in the gorge). If we had been on 89 in Central Utah, we probably wouldn't have found a place that was open at all, being Sunday in rural Utah, and we may have ended up having to stay the night somewhere. Even though the tire blowing was not a good thing, it's amazing how we were blessed despite it.

What a trip!