PART 2 THE RECKONING

So, I woke up Thursday morning toward the end of my trip after a relatively nice nap. The weather outside was a bit windy and oddly cold for the time of year and geographic location, but nice regardless compared to 90% of the weather in Wyoming at any given time of the year.

I sat down to watch some morning news and beheld a foreboding broadcast. Twenty inches of snow forecasted in Denver. Nearly two feet in a 24 hour period. Two feet accumulating before and during the expected time I would be actually driving through Denver on Interstate Highway #70.

Curtis woke up a bit later and I greeted him with a semi-typical, "WE ARE GOING TO DIE TODAY" to which he replied, "The early morning death visions are a sign of your deteriorating condition and I think you forgot your meds." "Nay, brother," I exclaimed, "Look upon the news box and define what thine eyes might see!"

He watched the news for a bit and apologized for the comment regarding my deteriorating mental state. We discussed our options and decided that neither of us had ever been to New Mexico before. Since it was south in the warm part of the country, we could circumvent the snow and see new sights before getting home, and hey, we might save time too by avoiding road closures.

We packed up and left at 12:15 PM, then said goodbye to my mom at the gas station she manages while I filled up with fuel. She bought us drinks and reminded us to wear our seatbelts and then we were off.

We drove through Zion National Park.

Then down to I-40 whre we began our trip East.

Oh wait, no, we didn't. We got stuck in traffic just outside Winslow, Arizona. 14 miles to be exact, where traffic was at a standstill for seven straight miles due to some kind of accident ahead of us. It took two hours of turning off the engine, waiting around, starting it, then moving twenty feet just to repeat the process in order to travel seven miles. Seven. 7. Ciete (Spanish). Set (Questionably-spelled French). Seven.

And Winslow was jam packed with vehicles, so we didn't stop until Joseph City, where Curtis and I finally switched off. I slept for about two hours in the back seat while Curtis drove through an ice storm in Galup, New Mexico. I didn't realize this, otherwise, I wouldn't have slept.

I woke up just outside of Albuquerque where we stopped at the Indian Reservation. I took over driving again there where the weather was clear. On the west side of Albuquerque, the roads were clear and dry. On the east side, the roads had an inch of snow upon them. Thus began the next 8 STRAIGHT HOURS OF NON STOP SOLID ICE ON THE ROAD AND NOT A SINGLE MINUTE OF CLEAR SKY NOR A MOMENT OF PEACE FROM THE RAGING TORRENTS OF WIND THAT THREATENED TO PUSH ME STRAIGHT OFF THE SLICK PAVEMENT INTO A SNOW DRIFT BEYOND.

Let me try to recall what happened in some semblance of an order. Uh, I followed a Plow Truck for about 30 seconds before he himself crashed into the median where I promptly followed since I couldn't see the road (apparently, neither could he!). Luckily, I hit my brakes before I hit him, so I was able to continue my journey.

A few hours later, I was going up a hill where I saw two semi trucks stopped in both lanes ahead of me. I slowed down to gauge my decision regarding my next move, when the truck ahead of me tried to pull forward. Unfortunately, the road was so slick that he could not pull forward. In fact, he started sliding diagonally backwards and to the right when he spun his wheels. The truck behind me realized he couldn't stop if he wanted to avoid being stranded, so he went onto the relatively narrow shoulder to keep moving ahead and came roughly six inches from taking my side mirror clean off the driver's side door.

Since I was then stopped, I tried to move ahead and found that I could only spin my tires, so I spun them to a rate of about 40 mph in order to lazily slide to the left onto the shoulder to where I found traction and then continued my travel.

Later, in Toscanini? Tucanini? Something like that, New Mexico, the snow was then drifting onto the highway. It was about a foot high on the north side of the road. The highway was not closed. I paid particularly close attention to that fact as I drove onward, despite the fact that the wind was blowing so hard that I literally could not see my hood, let alone the street. Between gusts, I would accelerate to twenty miles per hour and go until the next gust, where I would stop and wait until it was safe again. (Pro tip: In harsh snow where city street lights reflect and scatter from snowflake to snowflake, it is actually easier to see the road if you turn your headlights off completely and rely on the faint yellow glow of the metropolis you are driving through, instead of having to squint through the heavy contrast caused by your headlights bouncing direct light into your eyes.)

8 hours after Albuquerque, we made it to Amarillo, Texas, where the snow was still blowing, drifting, and icing over the road. A few miles outside of Amarillo, we traded driving so I could hallucinate with my eyes closed instead of open and on the road (at one point I saw a giant robot smash a car ahead of me with his/her laser-drill fist). I slept for about an hour (according to Curtis, through another spontaneous ice storm.) and then woke up to the sweet smell of a McDonalds Big Mac. I took over driving again an hour north of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The rest of the road was wet, but not icy. Total trip time coming home was 28 hours, almost on the dot. Trip time to Utah was 21 hours, again, almost on the dot. Gas mileage was worse coming home. First two tanks averaged between 37 and 39 mpg, and the second tank and a half averaged 30 to 33 mpg, as opposed to the solid 38-39 range going to Utah a few days before.

In conclusion, cars suck, the weather sucks, and I'm never driving that kind of idiotic retarded moronic drive in one straight shot in the unpredictable spring ever again in my life.