12/31/2024
Yesterday and last night were my first snow experiences for the year. And it was up there with the top 10 scariest trips since I've been doing this.
Got our dogs to Denver and Vail, Colorado pretty okay. Next morning we started getting some snow delivering Lambo to Aspen. The minivan would not make it up to their cabin that was only a thousand feet away from me. But I waited a couple of hours and tried it again and we made it.
Got out of there and started heading back towards Denver and got to Vail again. The Vail Pass was closed!! And so were my Southern routes. So I had to trek back all the way to the west side of the Rockies! Definitely time-consuming. All in all I got a full day behind. Have everyone contacted and we are all set up now for our next deliveries.
Got to Grand Junction pretty late and then started heading towards Durango. Doppler radar said no snow and the skies were clear. However! I went for the first time through a stretch called the Million Dollar Highway. It has three passes in it... one at 10.6K, 10.9K, and the first one was 11.1K elevation. That first Red Mountain pass was the scariest part. It just kept going up and there was ice at the top. Told myself as long as I didn't lose traction and wasn't sliding around I would move forward or I would turn around if it felt like I couldn't do it. That damn thing just kept going up. About a 25 mi stretch took me over an hour of just crawling through there. Straight out of a movie, dead silence, dead darkness. I was praying the whole way through. The next two passes were pretty epic but the roads were very good.
Got to Durango and settled down for the evening and googled everything I just went through. Said it is one of the scariest passes in the world.
When I say top 10 scariest moments I'm referring to two or three of those being from Colorado, Shasta mountains in California with a couple of more mountain tops there, the Grand Tetons, few places along I-80 across the country, the concrete jungle of New York City, and the Arctic Vortex of 2020... AKA "Storm of a Generation" that stopped us three times in one week.
Every one of those experiences happened in my first year of doing this. And I learned from each one and I have 5 years under my belt now. New thing to add from last night is No New Roads... at least for the winter. Those of you that have followed me this whole 5 years have seen some crazy stories.
We are a day behind at the moment, but should catch up soon. Got a big January. Stay tuned....
AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!! π π₯³
EDIT: Last two pictures are from one of my client's back porch. The patio furniture is buried.
Psalm 23!!
God bless from America Land ππ¨π±πΊπΈπ€ πΎπΎπΎ