What a Mess!

by Marsha Ward

While I was enjoying myself in Utah at the LDStorymakers Writers Conference, Nature was having fun in Arizona.

I'm sure the land slips and slides around all over the continent, but this slide occurred next to a highway--and not just any highway! The highway in the picture is the major link between where I live and the Phoenix area, where my family members live. With part of the mountain hanging so precariously over the roadway, the department of transportation has closed it.

There's also the problem of the pavement having buckled.

Pictured here are some heavy-duty chasms. I don't want to travel through there until a lot of earth is removed to some other place. Of course, that is the plan. There is no announced date for re-opening the highway, although some talk has gone around about using the other side for one lane each way come Memorial Day weekend. That's a long way off, when there are birthdays to celebrate very soon in my family.

There are alternate routes, adding over a hundred miles to the one-way trip, and doubling the time necessary to get to where I'm going. I look for prices to rise on basic things like food, water, soap, chocolate, etc.

I wonder if the earth roared when it let go?