Here's the scoop. We were invited to drive a car to Colorado for our daughter, Melynda, so we took off for a weekend drive to then fly back on Sunday evening. No problem. Right? Everything was
going fine until Cedar City, Utah where it started snowing at about 3
in the afternoon. The road wasn't too bad, so we proceeded up
I-15 and made the turn-off onto I-70 heading east to Grand Junction.
I had been checking the weather ahead on my Tablet and could see that
it was still snowing ahead, but that in about an hour the roads were
dry. That's what I focused on. So we headed up what, at
the beginning, I didn't realize was the assent to the summit at 7100
ft. By now the road was covered with snow, and as we rounded a bend
still heading up, we saw several cars and trucks ahead of us and
before we could chastise ourselves too much for not having chains, we
reached the summit and stopped in our tracks behind a semi that was
stopped to put on his chains.
We were going nowhere! But
there was some consolation in the fact that neither were the other
trucks and cars. I was so uncomfortable, because even though
there was an entire lane to our right, there was a cliff and no
barrier!
The police showed up quickly, called for the snow plow,
and after about 30 minutes and the snow plow spreading salt and
gravel in that outer lane next to us and the edge, three guys
literally pushed our car onto the gravel so we could get traction and
proceed, which we did.
The downhill had been plowed and
graveled, so we took it slowly and made our way down. We were
out in front with Melynda behind us. There was one other car
following her, and no one else coming down that hill. I can't
image how long they were stuck up there in back of all those semis.
After about 45 minutes, it started
to snow. It was about 5:30 now on a moonless nite, and
snowing and snowing some more and then some more until we had just
about 10 feet visibility. All Michael could do was to watch the
reflectors on either side of the road and go very slowly. The
snow reflected in the headlights and was coming at us so fast that
being more than a little tired after driving 12 hours on only 3 hours
of sleep, my mind tricked me for an instant into thinking we were
actually going backwards! Finally, after an interminable amount
of time, we were out of the snow, the road dried up or maybe we
occasionally hit a rainy patch, and we made our way to the turnoff to
Moab.
In Moab, we turned in the rental
car that Michael had been driving, got into Melynda's car and
continued on to Gunnison. Just as we were headed out of Grand
Junction on the 50 south, it started to snow again. I was not
happy. As we slowed down yet again, our calculus of our arrival
time at our hotel kept changing from the most optimistic of 11pm in
increments to eventually 2am. It just never got any better, but
at least the roads were regularly plowed, and we had our own personal
snow plow for about 30 minutes (at about 20 mpg). Other than that, we
were the only ones on the road. We did see a herd of elk
outside of Montrose; very cool! I also remembered that along
the way, we would be driving by a very long, long lake and at one
point we did cross the bridge, but other than that, we couldn't see
any scenery. No moon! We finally arrived in Gunnison and
our hotel at 2:30am and fell asleep instantly.
On Sunday morning, we headed east
along 50 toward Denver, now to take Michael and I to the airport.
Daireus was on his honeymoon at a ski resort, so we didn't even get
to see him. Our 3:54pm flight filled up before our waiting
eyes, so we were bumped to the 7:05. The lesson of the day
seemed to be one of patience, because at no point could we have done
anything about anything! Finally, we boarded the plane, and
once the doors closed, anticipated being home in our beds by about
10pm. But the plane didn't move. Finally, the captain informed
us that 8 pieces of errant luggage had been discovered on other
planes, and we would wait until they all found their way back to
their intended flight in which we were waiting. 25 minutes passed,
and we took off.
Arriving in SD, we taxied to the
gate, the engines shut down, and we waited for the doors to open.
Instead, a very stern and intentional voice came over the speaker:
"This is the Harbour Police responding to a call that there was
an altercation on this plane, and we are coming on board to remove
the offending parties. Please stay in your seats until we clear
the plane." They took off 3 adults and 3 teens from the
back of the aircraft! We hadn't heard a thing. Finally,
we disembarked.
It was so great to see Don and
Whitney who graciously agreed to take us to Encinitas to our car.
We got to the light just in front of the train tracks and the barrier
went down, not for an Amtrak, but for a freight train. Ok, another
few minutes is ok, but then the train stopped! Finally, after
about 15 minutes, we were on our way. Our heads hit the pillow
at 11:30. It was the longest day ever!
We love being back in San Diego, as
beautiful as Colorado is in the winter.
