I dropped the cat off at the vet's Tuesday morning, preparatory to setting out for my trip to Vegas right as the much-anticipated worst winter storm of the season hit Colorado. I stopped at the post office on my way out of town to send some priority mail, but the post office was, uh, locked; an employee was still snowplowing the parking lot.Once on the freeway, I ran into not merely continuing snowfall, but thick, heavy fog; at one point you were lucky to see three white stripes on the highway in front of you, and on the lead car's signal we all turned on our emergency lights so we could see who was ahead of whom, and how far. Some patches of road looked like they might not have been plowed yet and were coated with gritty slush, particularly in the passing lane, and occasionally you saw cars that had slid off onto the steep shoulders of our mountain roads.
"I'm George Clooney in a fishing boat," I thought to myself.
I had some concern that the Raton Pass through the mountains and into New Mexico would prove impassable, but as I drove through I found the sun was starting to beat down through the cloud cover overhead, the fog was lifting from the valleys and rolling up the sides of the mountains, and down on the New Mexico side you could see patches of blue sky ahead.
In other words, the storm had not hit New Mexico yet. But it was on its way, the news reports said Wednesday morning, and things had worsened in Colorado to the point where I was advised against trying to take I-25 back up there, had I decided to turn back. And I did give that serious consideration at one point.
Instead I made my first drive to Las Vegas, through the spectacular scenery of nothern New Mexico and Arizona. I was making good time, too, until somebody built that dam in the middle of the road.
I'm a houseguest for my fannish role model turned gracious hostess Linda Bushyager and her husband Ron, who are not only putting me up until I can claim my free Starwood points night at Caesar's Palace, but taking me to see Neil Sedaka on my birthday as well. (I had meant to spend the night watching the Academy Awards, but what are you going to do.)