Vacation Fail

I'm about to tell you a very sad story...

So upon hearing that a great storm was about to hit Arizona, we decided to try and go skiing in Flagstaff for a few days this past week. Clark moved mountains at work to get a few days off and we cashed in a favor and left our kids with friends (thank you, thank you Matsons!) The rain was falling in southern Arizona, snow falling up north- it was going to be EPIC.

Too epic in fact. Apparently Arizona has never seen snow like that before and the entire region went into a state of emergency. After staying a night in Prescott with my sister we tried to head up to Flagstaff but interstate 17 was closed. We changed plans and headed east towards Show Low, only to discover that the ski resort had closed down due to power outages. We got a hotel and hoped that the lifts would open the next day.

We needed to kill some time but the snow was falling hard enough that the entire town was in and out of power. I had to eat dinner at Taco Bell because it was the only place open. Taco Bell, folks. The movie theater managed to stay open and we watched Avatar in an empty theater while the wind howled outside. Did anyone else think that movie was kinda cheesy? With nothing else to do we headed back to the hotel to watch the news to see if a tornado would actually touch down in Tucson. Tornados in Tucson?! Seriously?! I fell asleep and had nightmares of my house being lifted off by a tornado.

We woke up to this...

And news that the lifts would not be opening any time soon.

And I tried not to cry but laughed instead because normally visions of such snow would make a skier giddy with delight. Once we knew the lifts weren't opening and the snow was only getting worse, we decided to get out before we got trapped.

Long story short- the snow never stopped. Never. stopped. once.

Here's how the trip home went...

- Several locals/policemen/highway patrol discouraging us from trying to leave.

- Putting chains on the tires, taking chains off. Putting chains on and taking them off again. In the snow of course.

- Creeping along treacherous little highways at 15 miles an hour.

- Facing road closure after road closure. We had to go from Show Low to Payson to Globe to Phoenix to Tucson in order to get home.

- Watching Julie and Julia, Labyrinth and the entire third season of Arrested Development while Clark drove. That's a lot of time spent in the car.

And it looked something like this...

And then this as we moved south...

I'm trying hard to look on the bright side. I got to see my sister. It was a "vacation" without kids. It's always fun to stay at a hotel, even if it doesn't have power. It certainly was an adventure and a break from the norm. And I got to wear my cute new coat that I gifted myself for Christmas.

But to be honest, I'm really disappointed that this didn't work out. And Clark, who never gets bugged by anything, may have actually done a little moping. I'm not sure what lesson I need to learn from this, but I have decided on one thing- it's time for me and my family to go Cairo. There I said it. Now my parents and little brother can hold me to it. I'm going to do a family vacation right this time. As soon as my mom gets her medical clearance to go home (did you know she was done with cancer?), I'm going to seriously look at dates. And if a sandstorm tries to thwart me, I will lose it.