Snow and Ice

I'm sitting at the SunPort - ABQ airport for the uninformed... and getting ready  to head back north where I'm really living even though my heart is here in New Mexico now.  This week I got the Placitas house all moved in to come back and live here for brief stops and then hopefully full time when we can figure out how. 

The city had a surprise snow storm this week.  Wasn't even in the forecast.  Infact after it had been snowing for three house - laid over 2 inches everywhere I tried to get a forecast of when it would stop and none of the major sites, weather.com or bing, or underground even had any chance of precipitation happening or going to happen.  One said there was reports of snow nearby.  Great - I could do better by looking outside.

I had the task of picking up my daughter at work in Albuquerque and headed out to do so and was stopped by a neighbor near the mailboxes and he said, "Turn around and go home, it's terrible out there.  Avoid at all cost!"  He told me that there was cars all over the road going sideways and doing stupid things and it wasn't worth getting out in it.  I tried to call my daughter to see if there was other options... but she did not answer.  Another car, similar to the one I was driving turned into the neighborhood and I waved her down and asked for a second opinion.  She said it was going to be slow getting down the hill, but doable.  So I headed out.  A drive that usually takes about 5 minutes tops took 20 minutes.  Driving no faster than 15 miles an hour, going past a couple cars that were being pushed out of spins, and seeing an ambulance head up the hill was a new look at living in the hills.  Hopefully it's not always this bad.. but I don't know.  What is usually a pretty deserted road was like a busy highway.  Ten cars in front of me and ten behind... at least.  The people going up the hilll were worse off, cause they were having to stop often and it was so slippery it was hard to get going again. 

After I got to daughters work - 45 minutes instead of the usual 15, we decided to go shopping and do dinner instead of getting in the rush hour mix going up that hill.  Good call, we had no problems or traffic at 7pm.  The lingering effects of the day were visible with many cars abandoned on the side of the road going up the hill.

The next day - still cold but gorgeous and sunny again and that helped to clear much of the roads.  Maybe my next car will be more of a 4 wheel drive.. Maybe.