threadwalker

I remember one mega-scary drive coming west out of Salt Lake City late in the evening. There had been a freak wind-storm passing through a couple hours earlier and I-80 was a literal obstacle course around the toppled semis. (Including the three-unit haulers -- when they jack-knife it's like an enormous set of nun-chucks whipping around.) If the wind had still been blowing at that point, I would have hung a U and paid for a motel room in SLC no matter what it cost. But it was just leftover carnage at that point. (When the wind came through, I'd been coming down into SLC from the east where you're protected a lot more by the canyons. So it was a very strong wind, but nowhere near as dangerous.)

I got the take-home lesson -- and the next time I found myself on a highway with semis doing the slip-and-slide (one December night on Hwy 97 in mid-Oregon) I did hang a U and go back to wait it out at the nearest motel. In that case, the idiots were trying to negotiate a steep hairpin curve on fresh snow with no chains. Slow-motion semis approaching you sideways ....