I hitched up and moved from Espanola to Taos on Wednesday the 20th and was advised to go immediately to Taos Pueblo. I did and loved it. I spent a couple hours just walking around and talking to the craftsmen/women and eating hot flatbread with powdered sugar. Yum.
On Thursday, I drove up to Taos Ski Village. I'd heard there was snow at higher levels and I wanted to check out the conditions, but I had another reason to go up there. A long time ago, my friend Chris Wooldridge moved to Taos to take over a ski lodge and restaurant with his brother, Tim. They were making a go of it at the Edelweiss Hotel when Chris died suddenly. Jean, his wife, asked me to do the memorial service back in Seattle. I'd forgotten that the Edelweiss had burned that spring, so what I saw up there wasn't the hotel that Chris and Tim built up. I did see Tim's new restaurant at Arroyo Hondo, but I was too early for it to be open. Nonetheless, I did find out that there was snow aplenty at 9,000 feet and I started wondering about crossing the pass on Friday.
I was pretty amused by the cattle signs. It seems these are all over New Mexico. It's hard enough watching for the cattle, but for UFOs, too? One friend said that the bullet hole was a warning not to stand too close to the sign. One had to wonder where the other five bullets from that six-shooter went!
Well, the dire predictions proved true. Friday morning I woke up to snow. About three inches of it. It was wet and sloppy, but the word was that the pass I intended to cross had closer to a foot of snow and another storm was moving in by 11:00. I had to shovel snow off the roof of the trailer and the canopy over the slide-out in order to pull it in. Got my propane tanks filled again and was on my way south by 10:30, just as the snow began coming down in earnest again.
By the time I got down into the Rio Grande Valley, the snow had cleared and I thought I'd outrun it. I was a little disappointed because heading back south meant I'd miss seeing the Capulin Caldera, but the weather report was looking bleak for that area and it was unlikely that I'd have made it up to the peak even if I'd managed the pass. By Santa Fe, the weather looked pretty clear and I headed south on 285 figuring that by avoiding the Sandia Mountains around Albuquerque it would be a smooth downhill trip to I-40.
Not so. Not only did I gain elevation steadily, I hit the snowstorm again. Crawling along the highway in the snow and ice, I passed a couple accidents before I made it to Cline Corners. I stopped for lunch and the snow seemed to stop as well, so I headed East. I figured that it was all downhill to Amarillo from here. It was, but I hit another storm and didn't get out of it until Santa Rosa. It was getting dark and I didn't want to risk driving at night, so I spent the night in a line of big rigs parked in the Love's truckstop.
Saturday morning I headed out again in a snowstorm. I calculated this trip. It was really cold the previous night, but the pavement was dry. The snow that was coming down was light, unlike the heavy wet stuff of the previous day, so I figured the pavement would be less slippery. I just got behind the slowest truck headed over the pass to Tucumcari, turned on my flashers, and crawled along. It wasn't too bad and took about 90 minutes to make the 50-mile drive. About half an hour out of Tucumcari I hit dry pavement again and it was pretty smooth sailing from there to Amarillo. The trailer was a mess, though!
At Veda, we were routed off the Interstate onto the frontage road for about five miles due to an accident the night before that was still being cleaned up. A dozen vehicles and three fatalities. Jack-knifed rigs with broken cases of fruit were scattered all over the highway. I pulled into Amarillo about 1:30 in the afternoon (another hour time-change to Central Standard Time) and went straight to a truck wash to get the crud off the rig. A lot of drivers had the same idea and it took an hour-and-a-half to get through. By the time I reached my campsite, the snow had begun again. I got set up and went out for an early dinner/late lunch at 3:00. By the time I got back to the campsite, there was over an inch of new snow and it was coming down like crazy. I parked the truck, went into the trailer, and stayed there for three days!
The snow finally started melting on Tuesday and I was able to get out again. Q was slated to arrive on Wednesday. Man! I didn't come to Texas to get snow!
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