December Blizzard

Out our front door

Out the back door

Passing time with our neighbor Chase

I haven't posted in a while. Maybe it's the busyness of the Christmas season or the distractions that come with the family spending Thanksgiving weekend very ill and my 30th birthday. I've been quite inspired today though to tell the tale of Rob trying to get home from work (remember it's 50 miles) in a blizzard. It starts with a forecasted 2' of snow in Denver and 16" of that in Boulder by 3 pm yesterday. Rob drove the Daewoo into work as usual and not the truck, but even four-wheel drive won't save you in 2' of drifting and blowing snow. As some of you know who live in Denver, they closed the Boulder Turnpike from noon through most of the day Wednesday, so Rob had to find an alternate route home. He spent about five hours going 10 miles. The problem with traffic at a standstill is running out of gas, so he probably would have been OK if he could have found gas, but with 1/4 tank left, he asked me to find a gas station between him and tollway, without having to backtrack. I found one on Mapquest using their gas station pin-pointer, and gave him directions. I called since from the map, it looked like a neighborhood and the cashier said it was their corporate office (no gas). Calling him back, he was already there realizing the same thing and made a U-turn. He ended up getting stuck in the neighborhood and trying to dig out for an hour and a half. We are grateful for the good samaritan that gave him a shovel and took him in for the night in Lafayette. In the morning, he was still stuck with no sign of the snow stopping. I called for a towtruck, but they were either busy helping the Broomfield Police get to work or taking their downtime from working until 4 am. Rob ended up making it out on his own. Did he head for home after all this?!? No, he went back into work for two hours, showered and had lunch there, then came home, finally arriving around 4 pm (of course, not before getting stuck in our neighborhood once more). Meanwhile, at home, Ashleigh and I hunkered down for the storm and went out today in the snow gear and carrying Ashleigh in the backpack over to our neighbors' house down the street. I fell once in a big drift and it was impossible to get back up in the powder with 30 lbs on your back and pregnant! So I ended up taking the backpack off to stand up again. I'm sure many others will have tales to tell of the blizzard of 2006, but this one is pretty good.