Eliot's Travels

Holiday Blizzard, Round 2

My flight out of Denver was Sunday morning. Mom and I watched the weather forecasts to track of the next storm. The meteorologists were unbelievably predicting another huge storm to hit the metro area, east and south. The storm looked like it was going to hit our travel corridor Thursday at noon and would last through Saturday. Mom and I packed up and headed out as soon as we could Thursday morning (around 9 am). We packed lots of snacks, an emergency kit, and even food for Julie's just in case we got snowed in there. By Del Norte and Monte Vista, we were in near white out conditions. Because we had already driven 3 hours across 90 miles, we decided to head toward I-25 fearing that the mountain passes on the other route would be too dangerous. This storm was approaching from the west, unlike the last storm.

It took well over an hour to get across La Veta pass. We saw a few cars off the side and one roll over, so we just took it slow. Once we hit Pueblo, the snow had turned to rain. Since we have been on the road more than 5 hours, we decided to stop for lunch. We headed toward Colorado Springs, hoping to miss rush hour. The snow picked back up in the Springs. We went slow and did fine until Monument Hill. Traffic came to a complete stop partway up the hill. You know it is bad when the snowplow is behind you stuck in traffic and when the radio says they have started to open up shelters in Colorado Springs for stranded drivers. We let the boys out of their seats to wiggle and I kept the windshield cleared. The car next to us was putting on chains as were the 18-wheelers around us. After 45 minutes, the huge orange DOT snowplow started to try and move up the hill. He got up 150 feet up the hill and went to work. Apparently 4 18-wheelers were stuck across the three lanes of traffic and that's why we weren't moving. Finally, traffic started to move and went quickly past the trucks in the lane the snow plow had opened up. We were only 50 miles from Julies. The snow was a blizzard as this point, so we got behind a line of cars and just followed the tail lights. We hadn't intended to stop, but following the car in front of us, we realized that we had exited the freeway only when we approached the gas station lights at Castle Rock. Visibility was unreal. We went to the bathroom and got a drink. We arrived at Julie's 10 hours after we started. It could have been worse and we were just glad to have made it there safely. Julie poured the wine, and we had the pizza she picked up.

posted by Whitney @ 12:47 PM