Snowed under
Started: 2006-12-20 20:21:08
Submitted: 2006-12-20 21:05:03
Visibility: World-readable
Most loyal readers will have figured out that Colorado is being inundated by snow. News reports yesterday suggested something big was coming, but when I woke up this morning no snow had started, but it had been windy for hours. The snow started during breakfast. I waffled about going into work versus working from home but decided to head in; I needed to drop off a package with my family's Christmas gifts. I headed to a nearby UPS Store but got stuck in traffic on Ken Pratt east of Main; a minor accident caused a major traffic snarl. It was snowing but not much snow had accumulated. I dropped off the package and again contemplated heading home but decided I would profit from going into the office; there were some things I needed to do that I could do better in person. I got into the office ok and watched the snow accumulate all morning. The office was pretty empty; most of my coworkers have fewer logistical issues working from home.
After a few hours, the snow was still getting deeper, so I left the office at 1130 in hopes of catching the Bolt scheduled to depart at 1138. I found a short queue and waited. After ten minutes I got bored and fished for my iPod, but I had left it charging at home. The bus finally came at 1210, at which point the line had crossed the covered regional bus boarding area and turned along the local bus boarding area. (Apparently I wasn't the only downtown office worker fleeing the storm.) The crowd packed the bus; it was standing room only all the way to Longmont. I managed to get a seat (since I had been standing in line for half an hour) and eventually distracted myself with three episodes of The Simpsons. The Diagonal crawled all the way to Longmont. When I finally got to my car, there were three-foot drifts around her; the wind sculpted the snow around the parked cars. I finally got home at 1430 -- my fifty-five minute bus commute had ballooned to three hours.
Kiesa was already home; the library closed before 0900 and sent everyone home. After eating, I didn't really feel like working, so I snowshoed around the neighborhood; I didn't really expect to need snow shoes in suburban Longmont. After supper, I headed out to attack the snow piled in the driveway and measured an impressive sixteen inches -- and it was still snowing as I shoveled Motoko's side of the driveway. (If any car will be leaving the garage tomorrow, it'll be Motoko.)
All this snow closed DIA (BA's flight from Heathrow and Lufthansa's flight from Frankfurt diverted to O'Hare); at 1100 I checked Frontier's website and saw that our flight to Portland this evening was canceled. I called Kiesa and she started redialing Frontier's line to try to re-book our flights. She kept getting a busy signal but persisted; she finally got through six hours later. We're now flying to Portland on Christmas and back on Wednesday. This means I'll be flying back the same day Megafest 5.1 begins, so I'm pushing back the official opening of the Festing Grounds to 1800 MST.
