Britton has a sharp sense of intuition about him. Mine, apparently, is not quite so honed. There are many occasions that I should have listened to him and instead was stubborn and obstinate. Today was another one of those days. When will I ever learn?
Today I had an all-day conference scheduled in Denver (actually for today and tomorrow). Whenever I go to Denver for work, I carpool with Britton dropping him off in Longmont and continuing to Denver. Last night Britton says, “You know, there’s going to be a blizzard tomorrow. Maybe we should plan on not going in to Denver.” Britton is lucky in that he can work from home/remote when on an as needed basis. A blizzard would constitute “as needed”. I say, “No, you know the weathermen here, they get it wrong as often as right. I need to go to this retreat. And besides, it’s SPRING!” Unfortunately, this storm gave what it promised and spring is deceiving.
So Britton reluctantly goes along with my- what I call adventurous or what he calls crazy- plan. On our way in through the snow Britton stops and pulls into the Loveland/Centerra Mall area and says, “No way, we have to go back home.” Me: Stubborn. Him: “Ok, but you take full responsibility for this day.” Me: Shrug. So on our way we continue. It was pretty bad, but we could still see and I have driven in plenty of blizzards and snow storms in Colorado before. I also call work, call the hotel where the event is going to be at and everything seems to still be going on. We arrive together in Longmont at Britton’s work. He gives me his cell phone since I don’t have one (amazing isn’t it). Unfortunately, I don’t really know how to use it beyond making basic phone calls.
On my way to Denver… going pretty slow, the snow’s coming down, but it’s still pretty slushy. They’re saying 8-16 inches on the radio. A couple of roads are closed. Schools, businesses are shutting down for the day. Hmmm, I think. Well, I’m already practically there. I get to the hotel, find the conference room, and guess what? Yep. Canceled. And on Britton’s phone it says: 5 missed calls. But, I don’t know how to access them. I manage somehow to get Britton’s work number extracted from the damned contraption and call him as I am stuck and completely stopped on I-270 West trying to get onto 1-25 North. It takes me 1 1/2 hours to go 2 miles. Visibility was ok, but a semi was just stopped in the middle of the road for no reason.
Then the BLIZZARD actually hit me. I really wasn’t scared until this moment. The wind picked up, the skies were a blaring, glaring white, the snow was spitting and swirling in the air and on the ground. My windshield wipers turned to ice and just smeared the water and ice flakes all around making it impossible to see. My sunglasses made it too dark, but the snow made it too bright. It was just impossible. I was looking under the smeary part of the windshield, leaning to the side and even looking out the side window trying to drive. When I saw that I was the lead vehicle and had no one to follow and no idea where I was on the road, I really flipped out. I just pulled over to the side still in the middle of the freeway. I got out -very dangerous- and wiped the ice off my wipers. I had to do this two other times.
This helped tremendously. Being basically blind while driving is way worse than the ice or wind. Those I can handle. Not only was I blind because of the ice and white out conditions, but because one of my contacts fell off my eye! While I was driving! There were a couple of times like this that I thought I should just pull over and wait for a couple of hours. But I knew Britton was waiting at work for me. In the meantime on one of my pull-overs, I call my office and lo and behold. All county buildings are closed as well -of course.
I finally arrived at Britton’s work at about 2 o’clock. It took me FOUR hours to go 30 miles that would normally take 30-45 minutes in regular sucky Denver traffic.
Anyway, I know I am stubborn and will probably have another lesson in the future, but I hope I learned something from this one. Plus, it was exciting. And I didn’t end up like the many people on the side of the road or the jack-knifed semis or worse. We saw one car with a Florida plate and just shook our heads.
