St George Soccer Tournament

 Kylee and I had a really nice trip to St George.  Her soccer team played really well.  They won two games and tied the third, which put them in the championship game.  That is fun, but it meant they played at like 3pm on Monday.  And we needed to get home that night.

We had plenty of free time to find good food, stop at the grocery store for healthy options, and try bubble tea.  It was very sweet and chewy and quite filling actually.

I got to spend some time with Lyndy as well.  She came to watch one of Kylee's games.  And I went to her place to visit one night.  She had a couple kids playing in the tournament too.  It really was just a nice time for Kylee and I.  Plenty of downtime to do what we wanted.  Lots of time to myself as well.

Her team ended up losing that final game and the weather had turned cold and windy.  We knew a storm was coming and we all just wanted to get on the road.  It ended up snowing down there the next day or two.  After the game we grabbed some Jimmy Johns and hit the road.  The only problem is there are thousands of other people visiting St George on President's Day weekend for the Parade of Homes, two different soccer tournaments, and some baseball tournaments also.  And most of them were leaving at the same time I guess.  The weather was bad, which slowed us down but there was also traffic and accidents that ended up causing over two hours delay.  It's funny this thinks I was parked, because I was in standstill traffic.

The good news is I never felt unsafe during that time because we were either standing still or barely moving.  Once we finally got to Fillmore, the Maverik was packed full of cars waiting to get gas, and the lines to the bathroom were very long.  This is the only time I've seen the men's line longer than the women's, lol.  Presumably because the women's had more stalls.  Luckily neither Kylee nor I had suffered during the delay.  We didn't need to pee all that bad and we didn't need gas yet.  So I didn't wait for gas, and the bathroom didn't take too long.  We got some soda to help keep us occupied so we didn't fall asleep and we hit the road.  Honestly, it didn't seem like that long of a drive.  I mean, it was definitely long but it wasn't as miserable as I expected it to be.  By the time the traffic lightened up and we could drive the speed limit, we were in Payson and so then we just drove through Provo and SLC and I stopped for gas in Brigham.  I told Kylee to try to sleep because she was insisting she needed to be at school the next day.  And at this rate our expected arrival time at home was 3am.  She slept and I listened to my audiobook or music for a couple hours.  That's when it started snowing again.  It wasn't bad, but I could see it settling onto the road so I felt cautious.  It was very light and fluffy snow.  I never felt like I was sliding.  But it started really coming down so that I could barely see the road.  I settled in behind a line of cars and just followed them.  I could see the tire lines they were leaving.  It was just blowing the snow out of the way, it wasn't really sticking that much.  As soon as we got in to Pocatello, it was a complete white-out.  I could not see the lines in the road or the edge of the road.  There were sticks coming up on the side of the road to tell me where it ended or I would have no clue.  Occasionally I would go onto the noise strip on accident.  I thought about pulling over and waiting it out, but Kylee looked up the weather and it was supposed to stay that way all night and all morning.  I decided to try it for a few more minutes.  It was no longer a white-out but it was still bad for a few more miles.  By the time we were coming up on Idaho Falls it wasn't bad at all.  But you better believe I was not at risk of falling asleep during that time!  Which is good because that's usually when I start to get miserably tired on the drive home.  Kylee went to school.  I got to sleep in a bit.  We made it.  We don't want to repeat.  Next year we might just stay another night.