Flagstaf Drive
by bigdaddi
In 1984 my wife and I decided to visit our daughter and son-in -law in Flagstaff Arizon where they were going to college at NAU. This was in late fall after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. We thought it would be nice to see what Flagstaff looked like in the fall. We intended to spend a week there and maybe look around for a place to live after I retired.
We flew into Phoenix, rented a car and started out for Flagstaff. Now since we arrived kinda late and it gets dark early by the time we got on the main highway it was getting dark. This road has no lights and only cats eyes to show you the lanes. Now I turned on my lights and was doing ok.
I was going 70MPH since the speed limit was 65 when I crested a hill and going down there were quite a few curves. I was so intent on driving I forgot to check the speed and a state trooper caught me doing 80 MPH. While he was writing me a summons I told him where I was going and he told me to watch out since it was snowing up there (Flagstaff is 7,000 feet above sea level).
Since I was only 3,000 feet up I had to climb for 4,000 more and still had about 100 miles to go. After about 1 hour more of traveling it started to snow. At first it was very light and I didn't have to slacken my, speed which I held to between 65 and 70. The further I went the worse it got until it was almost a whiteout.
My lights had very little effect because they would bounce off the snow and I could barely see where I was going. To make matters worse the road was only 1 way since the return road was obscured by the mountain and started to curve around the mountains. On my side since I was on the right there was a drop off.
Needless to say I dropped my speed way down but still was scared. Suddenly I saw the tail lights of a car and started to follow it. This went on for miles me following the car around the curves. However if he made a mistake and ran off the road I would follow him because all I could see was his tail lights nothing else.
All of a sudden I saw his blinker come on which meant he was getting off at the next exit. My heart fell because now I would be blind again and there were still the curves.
The gods must have been smiling because just as he turned off at the exit, the road became open and I could see the other traffic coming my way. All I had to do was follow the lights and could see when the road curved. After that it was a piece of cake and even though it continued to snow we got to my daughters house in one piece.
