RTW: Road Tripping It

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week:

In celebration of the release of Kristin Halbrook's NOBODY BUT US (hooray!!) we're asking: Zoe and Will set off on the road to seek a better life and encounter loads of drama on the way. What's the most dramatic road trip you've ever been on?

I expected to have to think really hard on this one (partly because I've never been on a proper road trip), but the answer popped into my head immediately.

I go to a university between seven and ten hours away from home (depending on who's driving and how the weather is). Luckily, I have a cousin with a truck that also comes here so I'm all set when it comes to rides home. 

Every break, without fail, we get hit by a blizzard either on the way down or the way back up.

The weather is overcast, but not bad, when we set out around four in the afternoon. There are five of us all piled in the truck. I'm in the middle of the backseat because that's just one of the "perks" of being the smallest.

We drive. And drive. And drive. We end up missing our usual turnoff, but that's okay we can stay on the route but it will just take a little longer. 

It starts to snow until it's really coming down. We can barely see out the front windshield. We're basically just following the tracks of whoever is in front of us.

Then, in the middle of nowhere, the electrical system of the truck starts to go. We keep driving until it quits. The boy driving coasts the truck onto the side of the road and turns on the warning lights.

The boys get out and, after several attempts, manage to flag someone down. We get a jump and get back on the road. 

We don't get far before the truck cuts out again. We flag someone else down (I'm so thankful for awesome college students willing to help out their stranded fellows) and get another jump. This time it holds for quite a while. The problem is in order to keep the battery running, you have to drive fast. And driving fast in a blizzard is a recipe for disaster.

By this time, all of our families have been contacted and know what is going on. My grandpa and two uncles are preparing for the possibility that they might have to meet us somewhere.

Things go well enough for a while. We pass a city and consider the possibility of stopping for the night. The only problem is they are expecting two feet of snow and we're afraid that, if we stop, we might not be able to leave for days. 

We keep going. 

About an hour south, the truck quits again. It's done this time. My family leave home to come get us. 

We sit on the side of the road, playing games in the truck, until we finally see their headlights through the snow. We don't want to just leave the truck in the middle of nowhere so we begin the arduous process of jumping it, letting it charge, and then driving until it quits.

We do this all night. By daybreak, we're almost home. It's nine in the morning by the time I finally fall  into bed, happy to finally be home. All told, what should have been about an eight- or nine-hour drive turned into a fifteen-hour one.