A Cross-Country Christmas (long story)

We headed out from New Orleans right on schedule at 6 am Tuesday morning.  Christmas presents were stashed underneath the bike in the back of the car.  Emergency winter supplies, blankets, food, water, etc, were on board.  The weather was great, but we were going to have to make it past a developing cold front somewhere in Colorado or Wyoming.  Even so, that route seemed, at the time, the best of the three possible choices.  The plan was to drive a new car up to The Daughter in Olympia, Washington, and then to drive home in her '02 Jeep.  A little crazy, perhaps, but it promised to be a minor adventure nonetheless.  The first day went smoothly and some time around 9 pm we checked into a motel in Salina, Kansas.  We were back on the road early the next day, hoping to make it to the Salt Lake City area that night. 

The drive through Kansas and eastern Colorado was pretty routine, and we decided to take a little shortcut from Denver up to meet I-80 near Laramie, Wyoming.  As we drove north I could see some bad weather and snow rolling over the high mountains to the west and wondered if we'd be far enough north to miss the worst of it.  As we pressed on to the west along I-80 we started picking up some light snowfall, but I was still optimistic as the sun went down.  I doubt it was half an hour later when things started to go from bad to worse .... really quickly.  We were in the middle of the mountains of the Wyoming Great Divide.  We were also in the middle of a snowstorm.  Suddenly, it seemed, the lane markers on the interstate disappeared, and I was straining to see where I was going through the blowing snow.  As I slowed down from 70 mph to 60, and then to 45, the passing trucks would blow up enough of the dry snow to make it completely impossible to see where I was going.  It was exactly like trying to drive with your eyes closed, except everything was white instead of black -- complete disorientation. The word "harrowing" kept coming to mind.

Eventually I resorted to hazard flashers, fog lights, full-on defroster, and windshield wipers complete with frozen blocks of ice on them.  We pulled into a closed rest area along with a couple of other cars to consider our options.  We learned that they shut down I-80 behind us later that night.  We sat there for about half an hour as cars, trucks, and a Greyhound bus full of desperate cigarette smokers came and went, considering whether it would be better to stay at the rest stop and get buried in snow or continue on and possibly drive off the road.  I decided that driving solo wasn't a particularly good idea considering my limited snowstorm driving experience, so I waited for a little convoy to come by and tacked onto the end. It was 35 white-knuckle miles to the next town, Rock Springs.  As other cars dropped out of the caravan, I was soon the only car left, clinging to the tail lights of a big pickup truck whose driver seemed to be reasonably consistent.  About half of the time, my only points of reference were those two red lights and an occasional glimpse of the post-mounted reflectors at the far edge of the shoulder. As we would pass other cars I'd drift left behind the pickup, feeling for the rumble strip. 

Finally we made it to the main exit at Rock Springs where I gladly pulled off in search of a motel.  Once we checked in we felt like we'd won the lottery and decided to drive down the street to find something to eat and pick up a scraper and de-icer at the gas station.  As we left the parking lot I stopped to chip away some of the accumulated ice from the windshield wipers.  Then, as we walked into the restaurant I realized I didn't have my phone.  I looked everywhere, and figured it must have fallen out of my coat pocket.  After an extensive search retracing my steps, I found it lying face-down in the snow where I'd stopped to clear the windshield. Of course it had been rolled over by a car, probably my own.  On the plus side, it still worked.  We went to sleep hoping the roads would be safer in the morning.  It dawned on me that the timing of our drive had us traversing all of the really mountainous areas at night.  Maybe not such a good plan?

(Much better driving in the morning!)

The next morning the sun was shining and despite a few warnings about black ice farther down the road, we left the local Starbucks around 8:30.  We had originally been hoping to make Olympia in three days, but the snowstorm had put a pretty big dent in our plans and our ETA would have been after midnight, so we went to Plan B, which was to basically stop some time before I started falling asleep at the wheel.  At least the interstate down to Salt Lake was almost deserted, and negotiating the icy road was a lot easier in the daylight after the road crews had done their work. 

Olympia bike path

The drive through Utah and Idaho was pretty routine and thanks to the 75 mph speed limit went fairly quickly.  After some long delays because of accidents and road construction we got into Oregon by mid-afternoon. Oregon seems to take a certain amount of pride in doing things differently than everyone else, regardless of whether or not it makes sense.  For example, you can't pump your own gas in Oregon.  You have to wait or an overworked attendant running around in the freezing cold while trying to handle three cars at once to do it.  The 75 mph speed limit that seems to be fine in the neighboring states drops to 65 in Oregon. 

Naturally, once it got dark we still had to drive through some of The Blues where the road wound around in the mountains making for some exciting driving until we finally decided to pack it in at The Dalles, leaving just a few more hours of driving for Friday morning.  Fortunately, the weather was warmer and there were no issues with ice or snow.  Through it all, the new all-wheel-drive Volvo V-70 remained remarkably sure-footed.  Along the way it got a very thorough road test that challenged pretty much everything from the heated side-view mirrors to the stability control system.  How the Jeep Liberty will handle the return trip remains to be seen, but a longer alternate route down south is definitely still on the table.

So we finally made it to Olympia around mid-day on Friday where I celebrated with a pint of the local Porter.  By 11:00 on Saturday the weather was looking pretty good and I decided it might be my only window for a good ride.  The temperature was in the upper 40s, the wind was light, and although the streets were somewhat wet it didn't look like there would be any rain for the rest of the day.  Here in Washington most people ride with fenders all winter because the roads are wet pretty much all the time, I think.  Moss actually grows on the asphalt around here.  The Daughter's place is right alongside a bike path, so I headed out onto that and ended up riding nearly 60 miles without ever getting onto a city street.  Although I'm sure there are more scenic rides to be had, it's always nice to have a network of bike paths available when you're in unfamiliar territory.

Should be an interesting ride back to New Orleans.