Stuck in Spencer

We left a little later Sunday morning than we had planned, but we were making good time. Until we hit Dubois, Idaho. We had been driving for almost 4 hours and we decided to stop for gas. At the gas station we were watching people come off the freeway from the opposite direction, their cars and trucks just caked with ice and icicles! Everyone we talked to said it was an awful storm through the pass. At the gas station the wind was ICE cold and blowing hard with a bit of snow, so we got back in the car and started heading towards the pass, we didn't get more than ten minutes away when we COULD NOT SEE A THING... not the car infront of us, not the road in front of us, not even the hood of our car in front of us at points! It seriously felt like a movie, it was very ominous and erie feeling. Luckly we made it to the next little town Spencer. Spencer is so small the only thing there was a small cafe- I think the name of it was "Cafe." So we made our way there, the snow was a really dry icy snow and it was blowing completely horizontal! So we went into this little cafe and they advised us to turn around and go back to Idaho Falls to stay the night. They said the storm was supposed to last for two days and if they closed the roads we would be stuck there with no place to stay since the only hotel was back in Dubois and that was just a little mom and pop place. So we turned around contemplating going home, if we couldn't make it through the pass for 2 or 3 days Tony would miss most of his class and probably wouldn't be able to take it if we did get there. We made it back to Dubois where strangely the weather was much better, we stayed at the gas station for a little while watching the people come off the freeway and talking to people. We heard there had been several roll overs and one man told us he had lived in Montana and Idaho his whole life and had never seen a storm that bad- his truck was covered with snowy ice. We decided that we would wait it out a little bit longer and if it didn't get better we would go back to Idaho Falls and hope we could make it through in the morning, because they said the wind in the pass wasn't usually as bad in the morning. We ended up waiting it out for about 3 and a half hours in the car driving around Dubois and then we decided to give it one more try. The cars coming off the freeway were starting to look better, at least it was looking like the snow on them was dirty and not as fresh. We also knew from our good friend Katie in Missoula that if we could just make it through the pass to Dilon, the weather would be fine. So we left and headed back up. The storm had almost completely cleared. The roads were wet and a little snowy, but we made it through no problems. We finally made it into Kalispell around 10:30 last night, it was a long drive but, except the last little stretch, seemed to go really fast. When we added it up we were amazed that we had spent about 13 hours in the car. Tayvie was out of the car for about a total of 15 minutes and Ayla maybe a half hour the whole trip, but they were AMAZINGLY good! They made the trip so much easier! Tayvie would fuss a little when it was time to eat and be changed, but then she would coo at Ayla for a little bit and then go back to sleep. Ayla did awesome, she loved "helping me" with Tayvie and holding her hand and patting her. She would tell Tayvie "we almost there Taybe." At the very end of the trip she started telling me she was tired but she didn't do any wining or crying at all! She did great! When we got to the townhouse she ran around the living room for a while singing and was so happy to be here. The whole trip she kept asking if we were going to "Hannah 'tana." In fact that's where she thinks we are right now is "Hannah 'tana." (My 2 year old's love of Hannah Montana is a story for another day). All in all, as crazy as it sounds it was a fun trip here, I'm just very thankful we didn't have to turn around and go home after all! :) So anyway, now I know the meaning of WHITE OUT BLIZZARD CONDITIONS! I wish I had a picture to post but if you open up your Windows Word Document to a blank page and stare at that that's about what it looked like!
P.S. I forgot to mention we were about an hour out of Kalispell and we almost hit a deer crossing in front of us!!! Glad that didn't happen! We were lucky...and so was the deer!