Inclement

We drove straight through. Usually we stop at a rest stop for a few hours to sleep and give the car a breather. This time, Amy pushed through Utah and into Colorado almost to Vail. We stopped to let the cat out of her cage for a bit and to top off the gas, then I took over. I threw back half of a 5-hour energy (it was about 4:30am) and got to it. 

The first mistake was expecting the sunrise to come anytime soon. It's winter. The sun doesn't rise until, like, 10:00am! So my hope for the guidance of dawn light was dashed upon the jagged rocks of poor research. 

The second mistake was checking Google Maps, noting a slowdown ahead, and wondering if it was just roadwork, or maybe an accident that was blocking a lane. Lack of curiosity, and maybe the fact that it was still a godless hour, meant there was no way it could be anything but those two things in my mind. What hadn't occurred to me was the fact that these were mountains. The Rockies, no less. Weather works differently in here. Checking the weather report is a way of life for anyone who lives in and around those mountains. My assumption that because the weather looked good on my little Apple weather interface a few days ago was full-scale amateur hour. 

The third mistake was letting the antifreeze freeze. I should've known we were topped off. I'd taken the car in only two days before and everything looked good. But I should have expected the cold and known the line would freeze. This turned the wipers into my enemies. 

So, we carried on, the snow light at first, then increasing in heft and vigor as we went up Vail Pass. Anywhere I could turn off to squeegie the windshield, I did. It would work for a time, but visibility, which was already piss poor, would decrease to an unmanageable point and I'd have to turn off again. 

It was 2 hours of heart-in-mouth driving. I think my shoulders got a good workout from the tension, and maybe the squeegie work too. 

We descended toward Denver and went up I-25 with the sunrise. I looked west into the foothills, into the fog of battle from which we'd emerged victorious. I could think only one thing: "We're idiots."

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