Blizzard Watch

Thursday brought nearly a foot of heavy, wet snow to Denver and Boulder. Thursday was also the day I was scheduled to go to the office, 45 miles away, to meet with Dan, one of the guys I work with. He and I were supposed to finish a project we've been doing for a while. When I got up this morning to dig my car out of its icy tomb, my fingers dug through the snow on the windshield and my mind thought about the fun I'd have driving to the office. It might have been more efficient to just stay in bed with coffee and Raisin Bran.

It took me over an hour to drive south on Highway 93 into Golden, a trip that usually runs about 25 minutes. I swung by my dad and stepmom's place to drop off a present for her birthday, and then wished them luck as they pulled out for the airport. They are headed to Vancouver today, and I'm planning on meeting them there tomorrow for a weekend to celebrate her 60th. We'll see if any of us even get out of DIA. From their house in Golden, I hopped into the car to continue the southbound journey, and got to C470 before things turned too bad to proceed.

I was on the entrance ramp when I looked forward and saw a line of cars that had completely stopped. Luckily, there was an "emergency only" turn around just off the shoulder, and I decided that if I sat in my car for another 2 hours just to go to the office to meet with Dan, there would surely be an emergency on the roads. I spun the car around and headed for Wheat Ridge. Calling my boss as I headed away from the office, I told him I'd just meet Dan somewhere else, and he agreed that it'd be for the best. He offered that if I did in fact come all the way down, there'd be a good chance I'd just spend the night, anyway. That was the final motivation I needed to completely turn on the notion of going in.

I slowly made my way to Wheat Ridge, only about 5 miles from the "emergency" turn around, in about a half an hour. When I got to the house, mom had already left, so I pulled my car into the garage, a rarity for me as I usually leave Abby on the street back in Boulder, and headed in to the warm house. The tea was still warm in the teapot, and the house smelled like syrup. Ahhhh, good to be back home! I realized that I'd only eaten about a half a bowl of cereal for breakfast before I left Boulder, so before doing anything else, I fried up a couple of eggs, made a bagel and an english muffin, and poured a cup of tea.

Maybe coming down this way wasn't such a bad idea, after all. This was underscored when Dan agreed to drive over to Ma's house so we could finish our reports. I also offered to get Dan a sandwich from Hickory, the insanely good deli at the end of the street here in Sweet Ridge. The only better sandwich I've ever found is the "sloppy joe" from the Milburn Deli in New Jersey. Not like hamburger helper, but a sort of club sandwich that I know will be waiting for me in heaven. Today is turning out really well in the food department.

Now I just have to see how the flights are faring with the weather, and maybe I can get to Canada for the weekend. If I make it, great. If not, I'm going to the store for a weekend's worth of bagels and cream cheese. I forgot how much I like cream cheese. It goes great with snow.