Calvary 4-Wheelers

March 23, 2010 was the day before the trip and the day to load things up. The plan was to leave work at noon on Wednesday, meet up with Stan in Denver and travel to Moab together but the forecast called for a nasty winter storm to arrive. Much to my chagrin, it did. After I had loaded everything up, we went out for dinner. As we got back it started to snow. I watched it snow 3” in a little over 40 minutes. That had me worried, but I was hoping for the best. I contacted Stan around 8:30 p.m. and he said it was bad in Denver as well. He was almost home after 3.5 hrs of driving. His commute takes less than a third of that on a normal day. Later that night, my Dad called and said that I-25 at Monument and I-70 near Evergreen were closed and we discussed other routes. The decision was made to wait until the morning and see what the weather did.

The wind blew all night and the snow drifted all around. I was very worried the trip was in jeopardy but, as I got up, the snow had stopped. The wind, however, had not and continued to blow the snow. I did my normal pre-work routine and made some time to shovel some snow. In the worst spot in my yard, it was about 16” deep and, as soon as I shovelled the sidewalk in the area, it would fill back in within the next half hour. I kept in contact with Stan, who was waiting on a friend to fly in from NE. His flight was cancelled and Stan couldn’t contact him, nor any of this family, so we didn’t have a clue what was going on. I started to make arrangements to leave early as I knew the weather would add a couple hours to my 7-hour trip. Needless to say, with Stan’s long commute the night before, he was scrambling today to get everything loaded up, packed up, and ready to go.

He called around 11 a.m. and said that his friend had gotten on an earlier flight and was already in Denver. He just hadn’t had time to call as he was rushed to get on this last minute flight. Stan informed me that, with the huge list of to-do’s he had, he wouldn’t be ready to leave until 2 p.m. I adjusted my plans accordingly and figured it would take between 1.5 and 2 hours to get to Denver in this weather. I loaded my final items, grabbed a bit of lunch and headed out around 12:30pm. I knew if I could get out of my street, I’d have a good shot at making it the rest of the way as I had heard reports that most of the roads were just wet until we headed West on I-70.

The first 15 miles were rough. They had plowed, but could not get the 3” of snow that was packed onto the roads by other cars. This snow had melted in spots making the road feel like endless potholes. It was so rough that a crack in my windshield that hadn’t travelled in two years, got another 3” longer. Once on I-25, it was smooth sailing. I got to the rendezvous in Gennesse and kept in contact with Stan. He was running a little later than he had hoped, but we were able to leave that location a little after 3 p.m.

The roads remained wet as we climbed up and over the passes and finally cleared just a few miles west of Vail. We stopped in Glenwood Springs for a fill-up and again in Fruita for a quick dinner where we met up with Bill, Richard and their crew. We ate a quick dinner with them and then made our way into Moab. Despite being late, we unloaded. My bronco was so filthy from the road conditions that I had to make a run to the car wash. Even while pulling into the carwash, the windshield was so caked with grim, that I didn’t know if I was turning in on a curb or the accepted entrance. I got the Bronco cleaned up and headed back for a good night’s sleep. We had made it.
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