Road trip

Woo-hoo! No speeding ticket from my drive through Wyoming and Montana this year! Of course, much of the highway from Casper to points north were hard packed snow, if not straight ice about a half inch thick. Sadly, no snow fell in Montana on Christmas day. Had a nice visit to see mom. Of course the visit involved a to-do list of things she hasn't been able to square away. Easy stuff; setting up the TV's that were moved around a few months ago, putting a hanging ball to tell her where to stop the car in the carport, resetting the friction belt on the stationary bike. We played some games, enjoyed great food & generally relaxed.

Snow did fall in Colorado while I was gone though. Seven inches on the 25th, then took a break while I drove home on Boxing Day (thankfully) then started up again that night. The snow is still falling now.

So, the stats...

$178.17
Gas money for the round-trip drive. Winner: Exxon. Loser: Airlines that wanted to route me through Phoenix(!) to get me there, at about twice the price.

61.848
Gallons of carbon-based fuel, cleanly and responsibly burned through territory that sees more methane emissions from cattle than my EPA-rated 21/28 mpg Altima could ever hope to fart out. Besides, while Wyoming and Montana beef is very fine grade in my ever so humble opinion, they still cannot trump my Altima's delivery of a mom's favorite, if only, son to her doorstep. Winner: Altima. Loser: At least 12 ounces of Bessie sitting on my plate.

12:15
Hours:Minutes that I spent in each direction of this journey, plus or minus 15 minutes... the log book was doused in water at one point as I made a left turn on to my mom's street, smudging up the pencil'd time entries. Winner: Bic. Loser: My precious mathematical numbers. You know, as opposed to the Alphabetical numbers...

1557
Total miles placed on said Altima, working out to just over 25 mpg (a tic or so better than the 50th percentile of that EPA bit, so there). Winner: ..uh, Department of Transportation I guess, in getting stats bumped up to grub up more Federal Highway dollars. Loser: Mother Earth... You didn't really buy in to that "cleanly and responsibly burned" tripe I typed up there, did you? My friggin "Check Engine" light is on again because it apparently needs a hug or something.

63.55
Average miles per hour including stops for gas and facilities (not bad at all, considering the off-and-on icy roads roughly from Casper to Bozeman, and my now considerably less-than-500-mile bladder... Getting old sucks, I tells ya). Winner: Minimal brake application. Hey, we're talking about getting to Mom's home cooking! Loser: Highway billboards whizzing by. Except those Burma-Shave verses...

MANY A WOLF
IS NEVER LET IN
BECAUSE OF THE HAIR
ON HIS
CHINNY-CHIN-CHIN
BURMA-SHAVE

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LCD Soundsystem, North American Scum

What season is this??

Washed the car over the weekend, and then saw this on the local news channel's weather forecast: "A WINTER STORM WATCH goes into effect for the foothills and mountains late tonight and will continue through tomorrow."

WTF?? When did we skip summer & autumn to give winter another go already? Guess I'll stock up on minstrels to tide me over until spring comes back again...

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Jim Dugan, Let Me Go

Couldn't get much better

What a great day to go skiing. Ten fresh inches of powder over the past couple days made the hours, well, demanding; I'm not in particularly great physical condition. At least I can still walk today though, so I call it a win.

On the way back down I caught this gem... I wonder where that lane is at?

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Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, I Touch You Once

Again??

Another blizzard is threatening to blow through tonight and tomorrow ... and possibly Saturday. After getting back from Nebraska (more on that in a later post) I suddenly saw just how much that bit of snow last week impacted us. I'm not talking about the airport, and the reported half million people affected by its closing. I only had to go to the grocery store for some basics, but the produce area was looking like Communist Russia of the mid 80's. There was NOTHING there except brussel sprouts and bagged carrots. Yes, I bought the sprouts. Go gag elsewhere. The dairy section was looking pretty sad, too.

I'm just hoping this blizzard gets outta here soon enough that I can head up the hill for some New Year's Eve fresh powder skiing.

On the up-side, I'm hopeful that there will be no drought this summer. I know there's not much lawn left for me to water or anything (curses to property management), but still...

Uriah Heep, Easy Livin'

But it's a four-buh-four!

So we had that blizzard come through. The state governor declared a disaster emergency in six counties, urging people to stay off the roads. Evidently some nut thought they could get through it. It seems they cracked.

Yes, we salute you, Mister "I-Can-Go-Anywhere-Because-It's-A-Four-Buh-Four" guy.

Oh look, a blizzard.

Today I was passenger in the carpool to work, for the driver has four wheel drive (and there was much rejoicing). Why so happy about this? Well, here's what happened while I was at work... or, "Meanwhile, back at the ranch". Elapsed time from dry to this was eight hours:


Mario was wondering what the hell was up:


Let's back-track a tad, shall we? I didn't check the weather last night. I didn't check the weather this morning. I walked out to the car with no jacket... basically, this was me:

Yeah. Froze my ass off leaving work, thankyouverymuch. But at 5am, all was fine. A little breeze and mere hints of teeny snowflakes falling, no big deal at all. Thirty miles and a mere half hour later there's an inch of snow on the ground and I overhear "blizzard warning" from a passing coworker.

Long story short(er), management takes until 11am to decide to let people leave to go home before it gets ugly out there... Oops, too late. Grrrr. Two and a half hours later I get home. Carpool driver made an additional ten miles over the course of the following two hours on his way home. Two hours. TEN miles. Gee, it's a good thing we left before it got ugly.

First Run for the season

I used my season pass finally! I decided on Keystone, reserved ski rentals online, and set the clock awfully early. (Note to self: Don't bother setting the clock so damned early. There WILL be wrecks on the highway no matter what time I leave, so just sleep the fuck IN! It is, after all, SATURDAY...) When I got there, I parked in the free parking about a quarter mile from where I needed to get the skis, which was a minor mistake. Live & learn: There are two rental shops feet from the free-parking lot instead of the one down the road... near the lifts I wants to be at anyway (Summit Express).

When I got to the rental shop, they predictably couldn't find my reservation. The reason they couldn't find it? Li'l Miss "I'm-On-Winter-Break-From-High-School" kept putting my first name into the LAST name field & vice-versa. No problem, really. It's not as though they were short on skis or anything.

So. Skis were clack-clacked to my feet. A pole occupied each hand (Whadda ya mean, "What were their names"? sheesh). The lifts were ridden. Many times. Came down various slopes (no diamond). Many times. Wiped out in exceptionaly sorry fashion. Ma.. uh, never mind. Point of that is: Nothing broken. ...okay, so I can't turn my head to the left very far, but still! (It's Monday morning now and I just tried looking left again... Ouch!)

I love skiing, but I have to wonder what the point is if I can't seem to get through even some simple moguls off the side of a blue run. Ah well, that's why I got the pass. So I can die practice.

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The Pretenders, Time The Avenger