| The Most Eventful Trip..... EVER!
The Weekend Begins
At about 10:00pm,
I head over to Crossroads to meet up with Casey, Jimmy, Stanley, and Ervin,
because we have to wake up at 4am the
next morning. Casey let me borrow his
old snowboard set up and so Stanley
taught me how to wax the board and I rearranged the bindings. We go to sleep at
about 1 or 2 am and wake up at 4am to pick up Reo…
Meet up with Allison,
Jenn, and Janet
We make our way over to Redlands
area to meet up with the girls. They’re
a little late, so we decide to buy some doughnuts and get sugared out by them.
Allison arrives. While trying to find her a safe place to park her car, we
discover the quickest traffic light in the United
States. It runs through the entire cycle of
green, yellow, and red in about the course of 3 seconds. Not only that, there’s
one of those red-light cameras on the corner as well. Hungry for actual food,
we go to McDonalds. The inside is closed, so we go through the drive through.
Jen and Janet arrive. Jimmy’s truck is still sitting in the drive through and
we’re informed that it’s going to take about 30 min. We played a little game of rush hour to get his car out and make our way up to big bear. Snowboarding - "What this Trip Was Planned For"
It is important to keep in mind that the story I wanted to tell really has nothing to do with the actual snowboarding, but just for purposes of documentation, everyone did really well on the mountain. Jimmy was REALLY good for his first time flying down the mountain at incredible speeds. Allison was pro, but her excuse was just that she doesn't know how to stop. Janet is hardcore! Take a look at her knees. The Real Story Begins - "Jen's Car Dies"
It is about 6pm and it's starting to snow. Conditions are going to be bad for driving back. Getting into the cars, we all pretty much change out of our snow clothes happy to be in a warm car. We drive a little ways and turn off into a side street to install snow chains. All our dry warm clothes become wet again. Not really ever installing chains before, it takes us a little while to install a set on each of the three cars. When it's time to go, Jen's car won't start. The car got too cold. our cars are continuing to pile up with snow and we're running around trying to figure stuff out. Casey attempts to turn around so we can jump start Jen's car, but falls into a hole because we can't actually even see where the road is (it's covered in snow). All of us guys run over there to lift up an push Casey's car out of the ditch. The car is now in place to jump start Jen's car. We find that no one has jumper cables. Running around hopelessly in the snow, we find a bar where some guy let's us borrow his cables. Jen's car starts up and HALLELUJAH! Finding a Restroom - "Operation Yellow Snow"
At about this time, we're all cold and have to find a restroom. Jess and I run down the street to find one, but everywhere is closed or doesn't have public restrooms. That's all I'm going to tell you about this segment. Driving - "A Team Effort"
The drive down was incredibly bad: snow flying into the
windshield head on, snow, black ice, and visibility of about 30 feet. Jimmy
switches on the four wheel drive and leads the caravan down the mountain.
Moving between 5-20 miles an hour, this trip felt really dangerous.
Accidents everywhere, people sliding, spinning out, hitting banks, etc.
The only way we could tell where to go was look for previous tracks people had
left for us. Inside Jimmy’s car, we made driving a team effort since we were
leading a pack of about 5 cars now. Jimmy would drive and try to keep the car
from sliding around. Reo and Stanley would look as far off into the distance
for signs of obstacles such as spun out cars or upcoming turns. I kept my eyes
on the side of the road to make sure we weren’t getting too close to the edge
of the road and accidentally falling into the dropped off gutter. Jimmy got many nicknames this night "the Trooper", "the Iron Man", "the Trail Blazer", etc. People would move off the road and get behind us just to follow Jimmy's tracks.
Split Up - "Oh No!"
There was a traffic accident where only one lane for two
directions of traffic was open. Apparently, due to the way the police were
directing traffic, our cars somehow got split up. We get a phone call. Jen’s
car slid off the road. People behind her and Ervin pushed her car out of the
snow bank and back onto the road. Phone
calls were flying back and forth trying to get a hold of each other’s cars to
see how we were doing. Of all the cars,
Jen’s car was hard to get a hold of.
Because of the mountainous location, Jen and Janet’s phones didn’t have
reception. Ervin was in their car, but his phone ran out of batteries sometime
during the trip. The only person I could get a hold of was Allison and the
phone would cut out after about 2 seconds. Once we got down a little ways, and passed
the black ice, Jimmy’s and Casey’s cars pull off into a small rest stop where
we took off our chains and waited.
Finding Jen's Car - "Wow... Can this REALLY be happening?"
We pulled off to the side, but how would Jen know? With the short bursts of calls with Allison, the message was passed something like this.
"Allison.. are you guys alright?" <call cut out>
"We stopped on the side of the road." <call cut>
"There are a lot of cars here putting on chains" <call cut>
"Look for a stop with port-o-toilets" <call cut>
"Look for a stop with a truck caution sign" <call cut>
"Jimmy and I will stand by the sign" <call cut> While waiting for the girls and Ervin, we stood out in the slushy snow / rain by the sign in hopes of them recognizing my UCSD jacket and Jimmy's red, white, and blue Nautica jacket. People driving UP the mountain would come by and ask us for pointers and help putting ON their chains. Luckily, we had experience with that!... haha. Jen's car finds us and we celebrate once again. We're Together - "Let's Go Eat!"
We made it! We pick up Allison's car and decide to go out and eat. To make things a little worse, Jimmy's car and Allison try to find a place to eat but accidentally get back onto the freeway. Ervin and Jen misplace their keys for a little bit. Finally we all meet up at an In-N-Out. We thank God for our being our protector and exchange stories about our VERY eventful trip. Conclusion
We'd have to agree that this had to have been the craziest trip we'd ever been on. We thank God for bringing us home safely! Jimmy, Jen, and Casey are our heros excellent driving by all of them, and not only that, they kept their cool the entire way back. Overall, I'd have to say that since we didn't get hurt or anything, I enjoyed this trip, because we LEARNED A LOT of stuff in the last 5 hours and TONS of bonding occured. We have stories to tell and I'd have to say, we won't forget this trip together for quite a while! Casey had asked me .... "who will document this on their xanga?".... I shall be the first.
Picture courtesy of Jen Shih
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