WasteMH

In December of 2008, I was visiting my grandmother who lived out near Las Vegas. I was only 10 years old at the time and still in 5th grade, meaning I was still in elementary school while this trip happened. We always made an effort to go out and visit her whenever we could, and because Vegas is a 5 hour drive away, we had the luxury of being able to go usually a handful of times a year. This specific journey however, we had our hands tied. The only window we had for the entire season of winter was during the start of my Winter trimester (my elementary had each year split into 3 sections and not the normal 2 most schools did). It was only going to be about 2 days I was going to miss (Monday-Wednesday, the Monday was off that week), and I would be back that Thursday. No big deal, I had homework given to me in advanced and some worksheets I could look at. They weren't complicated at all, and the teacher said things were not getting too crazy until the Thursday I came back.

After a fun time out with my grandma, and seeing some movies with her, the very short vacation finally came to a close. The day came for me to return to my home state. We packed our things, said goodbye, and as we walked outside.... it started snowing. Snowing. In Las Vegas. It quickly became more than just a little bit of random snow. It started piling. Ice formed on the roads. Cars, not equipped to drive in these conditions (it's a desert) started veering off the road. Collisions were happening frequently as we moved further out into the middle of nowhere. It was a full on blizzard. The road couldn't be seen far ahead at all. The lines in the road started blending in with the snowfall. Visibility was so obscured that the lights on our cars didn't matter. Any slight movement would send the car skidding a tiny bit but just enough to make you nervous about the stabilization of the car. We kept moving forward, carefully, but forward as we thought if we made it further out of Nevada we would be away from the blizzard ensuing. This was not the right move.

When we made it to stateline, they had blocked off the exits. We got trapped inside, along with everyone else traveling between California and Nevada. The roads had been totally iced over, even on the California side. The blizzard was huge and engulfed not just Nevada, but parts of California too. The state workers had to sandblast the roads, which was funny considering this is in the middle of a desert. Until the roads were safe to travel on again, we had to wait in stateline. We booked a hotel at the nearest place, which we still had to pay for but alas it was discounted. The line for booking a room was incredibly long, as there were countless other people stuck here at the same time. We were all in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing could have been done, other than just never having the trip whatsoever.

It took an extra day and a half to get back home. By the time I had returned, I had even more work and events I had missed out on that Thursday and Friday. It wasn't a disaster, and it didn't ruin my life or anything. I wouldn't even call it a bad experience more than I would just a very large inconvenience. But what never left my mind was the randomness of life. How anything, anywhere, can happen. Especially things that you wouldn't imagine being probable. What kind of future do you see for yourself? Have you thought of anything that could suddenly happen to you? Have you prepared for it? Can you? Should you be worried about anything at all times in all places?


This isn't some fake parable. This really happened. Here's an article talking about it:
https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/remember-las-vegas-snowstorm-on-this-day-in-2008/