Crazy Dayz

The snow started falling a week ago today, and through Wednesday evening it became a routine as such: School gets cancelled with a phone call at 6am, I head down to work, Dana’s massage sessions get cancelled around 9am, Lyza plays with friends all day thinking that “snow days” are never going to end, I come back up around dinner, shovel or snowblow the driveway, and get ready to do it all again the next day. We managed to get in a nice mid-week run on the streets in the snow, and things still seemed fairly normal. Then came Thursday.

School was cancelled with a 6am phone call, and word was out via radio that all of the roads in and out of Flag were closed. Then the wi-fi went out, and the snow would not stop. I borrowed a neighbors snowblower twice that day, each time tossing 6-12 inches of snow away and keeping up with the precip as best as I could. Then, it turned to rain. Steady rain on top of 3.5 feet of snow for two hours, and then it switched back to snow through the night. I went to shovel the driveway and it was like picking up 50 pound scoops of water. I managed to carve out a small path to the car, and that was that. Goodnight. Phone call from work – power is out. Couldn’t sleep, but couldn’t get out of town to help either. Shit, shit.

Friday AM was a blizzard, but around 2pm, the skies lightened up for a bit, and I made a break for I-40 west towards Williams, figuring I could drive 130 miles to work by going around the back of Sedona. The highway was closed, but I stumbled on an on-ramp with no cops and went for it. I saw one snow plow over 30 miles, and was able to keep a speed of 45 mph on the snowy highway until the road dropped down to 4,000 feet and it was totally clear. White knuckle driving, but fun too. Having two snow covered lanes plus a shoulder all to myself was pretty sweet. The elevation profile of that drive looks like a mountain stage of the Tour. Start at 7,000 feet, down to 4,000 in Ash Fork, back to 8,000 over Mingus Mountain, down to 5,000 at Jerome, down to 3,000 feet in Cottonwood, and the homestretch into work through Sedona at 5,800. Snow, rain, snow, rain….and power outage, still…..

The power outage kicked everyone out at work, ‘cept for a few brave souls who burned wood for two days to stay warm, and finally the heartiest couldn’t take it anymore and left on Saturday night. The generator for the lobby saved us as we had heat/light for the staff. We lost our ass on cancellations, but the property is fine, and nobody got hurt other than rocks falling on the roofs of two guests – one going through the back window of a PT Cruiser – how the hell did that happen I don’t know, but it scared the shit out of that guy. In the 12 years I’ve been here, I haven’t been hit by a falling rock. I’m either livin’ right, or lucky, or maybe a little bit of both.

The most direct road home on Saturday was still closed, so I had to drive 1.5 hours to get back……not as bad as the 3 hour odyssey on Friday though. I stopped by a local store that was open and picked up a movie and a Mickey’s Tall boy. A little malt liquor was just the ticket to take the edge off a stupid 24 hours of stress. Sunday was time to recover. D and I hit a barely snowtracked road for the hardest 6 mile run I’ve done in a while, and then I headed downtown to watch the Vikes go down with Brett Favre slingin’ a pass into traffic that sent the game into OT. Live by the Favre, die by the Favre as Big Steve warned me back in August. At least he swept the g-damn Packers.

So, the road to work is still closed and I’m not commuting three hours a day, every day until they get it plowed and repaired. I think boarding at the Bowl is on tap for tomorrow. The ski hill got 7-9 feet of snow that they couldn’t even control for two days – finally reopening on Sunday. 9 feet? 108 inches? I can’t wait to get up there.