RAV! You rock!

It's been a while since i've written, and now's as good a time as ever because Denver's snowed in!! And despite the major warnings on TV last night, nobody cancelled work, so traffic was a mess and there will be endless undue accidents and stories for people to tell their children for years to come about how they ran out of gas on the side of the highway and walked 40 miles in the snow to get help at the only 7-11 that was open (rather than calling the free phone number for Colorado Department of Transportation highway rescue).

If I can just rant for a while here, people are SO DUMB about driving in snow in Denver. I have never seen such a bunch of sorry asses. The governor has declared a state of emergency because of the stupidity of Coloradoan idiots who, for example:

1) neglect to drive with their HEADLIGHTS on... about 1/3 of the cars don't
2) don't get decent tires, or don't ever get their tires replaced in their car's lifetime. you have to buy all-weather tires in Colorado, it should just be mandatory when you register your car!
3) they don't wear a jacket or hat or gloves
4) they don't wipe the snow off their rear window, or rear view mirrors before driving
5) they don't pump the break when they start to slip
6) worst of all - they drive on the shoulder because they think it's a lane or think, "aha! I can bypass the traffic!"

A lot of the world's ills could be solved if more people would have just had a good drivers education class.

My boss thankfully kicked us out of work this morning, before I could even finish what I wanted to get done, and by 2pm we had 8 inches of snow already. I was very impressed that my car not only gripped the snow well, but in several cases of fresh snow, it grilled right through it without flinching. Love the RAV. Love my new Yokohama tires.

The craziest part was not the snow on the roads but the fact that in most places, highway and street signs were covered in snow, so you had to rely on familiar landmarks like trees or neon store signs to recognize where you were. A few times I seriously thought, "Oh! Now I know where I am, I never would have guessed it was that street!"

In our own neighborhood, the snow is always worse than it is just outside. It's like we're in this little microcosm of bad weather, under a different cloud or something. When I drove into my apartment complex, gusts of wind were kicking up the snow, so you couldn't see 20 feet in front of you - other than just sheer WHITE. Looked like a sand storm.

Sigh. So it's way too crazy to go outside and take pictures yet, my camera would get soaked in an instant. But this photo explains it well...
You know it's a blizzard when you come inside and it's not enough to take your shoes off, you have to actually undress or the carpet will get soaked. Good thing I have two pairs of Uggs!

As for whether I'm going to make it to Connecticutt, my flight leaves tomorrow at 1:30 and knowing Colorado, this blizzard will be "old news" by then, so I'm really not sweating it YET. I usually am confident that the airlines will find a way to get you there - their employees work all night sometimes to get it worked out. If it's actually that bad of a nightmare that I can't get out of Denver for 2 or 3 days, just in case, I have thought of a backup plan - I will drive down to Austin to spend Christmas with Julie.

song in my head right now:
Eight Days a Week demo on the Beatles anthology
"I'll try to remember, John, and if I don't, well it's just too bad, inn-chit!"