03 Feb 2006 Friday

We left Hays and drove west across the rest of Kansas and into Colorado (finally!).  It’s hard to tell eastern Colorado from Kansas, lots of flat plains and nothing.  Our entertainment was watching tumbleweeds commit suicide by running in front of the truck.  Continue through Denver and into the mountains.  We drove up into the mountains and, at first, caught a few wisps of snow flurries.  We stopped in Idaho Springs, CO for some groceries and head toward Loveland Pass.  We’re running right into a snow storm.  We’ve seen several vehicles on the sides of the road where they’ve slid on patches of ice.  Andrew puts the truck into four wheel drive and slows down, along with all the traffic.  White-out, no visibility.  US 6 is closed due to conditions, so all the bigs trucks that are usually diverted that way are here with us, along with thousands of others, inching our way through the blinding snow to Eisenhower Tunnel at Loveland Pass.  We are stuck in this traffic, inching forward, for well over an hour.  Just before the tunnel, Andrew couldn’t stand it anymore… he had to pee. We pulled off at an exit ramp and he ran out to pee next to the truck.  By the time we left, six or more other cars had pulled off for the same reason.  When we went through the tunnel, we saw four more cars pulled off peeing on this side, mostly women this time, dropping to pee without care of being in public.  After Loveland Pass we dropped down into Dillion-Silverthorn valley and got off to rest a minute and get a bite to eat at Wendy’s.  Andrew said he felt ok about going on and really didn’t want to spend another night in a hotel (and a ski resort hotel in season wasn’t in our budget!).  The weather conditions over Vail Pass were even worse, but much of the traffic stayed in the Dillion-Silverthorn Valley.  We drove really slow, it took hours to go just a few miles.  After we left Vail Pass and entered the towns below, the snow stopped and the roads were clear.  We made it up to the Koransky house in Cordillera by 9:30 (mountain time), had one beer and went to bed.