Adventures in driving

SO. Big, long, crazy day. I woke up at 6:23AM to get clothes on and do whatever I needed to do before I went over to Tyler's (I had to be there by 7AM so his step dad could take my car to work). When I got there, Tyler was being his cute little self and spending some nice time sleeping. So I woke him up like he asked me to, and I went and got some breakfast in the kitchen. I spent the next hour and a half of the morning doing things like, watching tv, strolling around the kitchen, and watching tv some more. Finally, at like 8:52AM we left and got onto the 202 then the 101 around 9:10AM.  We drove to Black Canyon City where we decided we should probably fill up before getting to Flagstaff. Pulling up to this podunk little crappy gas station that didn't even have self serve pumps, we felt a little apprehensive. I suggested the Shell down the street, but we were already there and I'm pretty sure we both just wanted to keep moving. We went into the store, which smelled STRONGLY of cigarettes and booze and which also sold things like marijuana pipes and hookah, and gave the lady the card to fill up the tank. I then asked if they had a bathroom, to which she replied yes and gave me a key to unlock the outdoor room.  This is where the story becomes juuuust fabulous. I went into the bathroom, and it pretty much would be a great bathroom to be in a horror story.  There was a nice leak of water coming from the wall that had spread across the concrete floor, the toilet was pretty much brown from being so old, and the sink was concrete as well. To make matters even more awesome, there was a nice, classy condom dispenser. Point is, I felt like I got an STD just from walking in the door. (By the way, I did NOT sit on that toilet seat. No way would I do something stupid and chance sitting on something like that.) I brought back the key to the lady, and Tyler came into the place to get his card back. Before she gave it back, she went over to the other counter and blatantly wrote down his card number and pretty much tried to steal his identity. But, drugs and alcohol do indeed get to your brain, and the lady didn't think we'd be watching her do this. Tyler was smart enough to ask her for her name and blindsided her while doing so. No, we didn't confront her about it when it happened. Yes, she did have a gun strapped to her waist. No, she hasn't used his card yet. YES, we DID spend 25-30 minutes total stopped on the side of the road trying to reason with crazy outsourced customer service from Chase. We did work it out, and so far nothing bad has come of it. SO we continued on. By now it was 11AM. TERRIBLE time for getting out of the valley and up to flagstaff. If none of that had happened, we would have been in Flagstaff by the time we finished working all of that banky stuff out. Not to mention, the stress was pretty bad, and Sir Valiant was pretty angry. Very angry in fact... but he had every right to be. Basically, he drove to Flagstaff and we got there around noon. Pulled into a Subway because our tummies were quite angry themselves. I had a delicious grilled chicken, American cheese, mayo, lettuce, onions, and avocado on Italian herbs and spices bread sandwich. I don't usually like Subway, but when you put avocado on a sandwich, you have my heart. We sat in the car and ate, because, you know, eating in the actual establishment is just... well, weird. It was freezing. Actually, it was windy. It's not freezing there. It's freezing here, in Orem. WAIT. You don't know I reached my destination yet! AHHH. Rewind. It was cold and windy and bitter chilly. After we ate, I got in the driver's seat and drove all the way to Kanab, I seem to recall. At Kanab, we switched, and Tyler took the wheel until we got to Panguich, where it was very much so snowing. Yay. There were a few inches of snow on the road and we knew we had to get through a lot of canyon before coming home, so for a little bit we debated on if we wanted to stay at a hotel or not for the night. I kind of had the feeling that if we stayed we'd be even more stuck because the snow would continue through the night, so, we pressed on. We said a prayer once we got to Panguich, and started out taking the road slowly. Of course, there were those drivers who decided going 65 up a slippery canyon road is a good idea. Fact: it is NOT a good idea.  Silly people. We probably averaged around 30mph on the way through that first canyon. Once we got through that, we hit I-15. By the way, I again was at the wheel because I've lived in Utah my whole life and "know" how to drive in snow whereas Tyler has really not much experience with it. When we were on the freeway, we had a goooood ten miles of clear road before we again hit a snow storm. This time the snow was coming down so much that it actually got us both dizzy. When the road and landscape is so dark that all you can see is the road and the snow coming down through your headlights, you do get dizzy. Trick: Don't look at the snow. Look at the road. So that bad snow storm lasted through Fillmore. Which was very frustrating. I do feel a bit bad because I snapped at Tyler a lot and got really angry. What can I say? I absolutely hate and dread driving in the snow. If I had to walk across a tight rope over sharks, I'd probably do that before I drove on a snowy road. (Either way, death?) Don't quote me on this one, though. So the snow lasted all the way through Nephi and finally started to die down between Santaquin and Payson. The sad this is, during the drive between Beaver and Cove Fort, we probably were averaging 30mph again. It was bad. It took about 45 minutes to get through that section of road. Baaaaad. By the time we got to Nephi, it was 8:30PM. So yes, we had been in the car for almost 12 hours at that point. Thankfully, the roads were clear, and even though it was still snowing, I was able to average about 70mph, so that section of the drive went by super quickly. THANK GOODNESS! I don't think I could have lasted another hour. We finally got into Orem around 9:15PM. My eyes were drooping, and I couldn't stay in the lines on the road. It. Was. Great. So here I am, and it's 12:15 in the morning. For some reason, I'm not tired anymore. Tyler is out like a rock, and I stayed up to wait for Jane. I haven't seen her for quite some time. Or anyone else for that matter. Anyway, she's home now, but I hope you take the time to read this, because I spent a lot of time on the road today, and I spent a good 30 minutes writing this tonight, so there. Help utilize my time productively because I didn't get to today! And now I say, farewell! I'm going to bed, crazy heads.