A group of us left Saturday the 30th for a ski trip in Breckenridge. The thought was, if we leave Dallas early enough (5am), we can get checked into our condo, go grocery shopping and pick up our equipment rentals that night, so we would be good to go first thing the next morning.
We stopped in Amarillo
for lunch (we ate at Subway, although the 72 ounce steak did sound appealing). and we were making record time, but as we got just North of Amarillo we started seeing signs that the road was closed due to weather about 90 miles north of where we were. My friend Jimmy and his Fiance where already in Colorado and sitting in front of a computer, so I designated him Goose to my Maverick. He would periodically call me with updated road reports/closures from the D.O.T. as I was leading the caravan of death through the frozen tundra. For about two hours we were flying north west, attempting to swing around the road closures while making northern progress. We then were thrown a dirty curve ball. We had traveled so far into the middle of nowhere that we were left with only one option to head north. It was "closed". We decided that closed was relative and we headed down the "closed" road.
I was on less than a quarter tank of gas, no problem since the next town was in 19 miles, and the first two miles of closed road were in better condition than the open roads we took to get this far. Within the next mile the road turned AWFUL. More awful than that..the next town didn't exist, then town that was 10 miles past that, Amistad, wasn't as much of a town as it was a cultish compound consisting of a Methodist church, a 1a high school and no gas station. Excellent. We reached the point of no return, were forced to turn around by the snow plow company, and found refuge with a farmer named Chuck. This all had the makings of incredible horror movie. Chuck ended up being one of the nicest men I have ever met. Even when we knocked on his door during an ice storm. He found an old hose in his hog barn, helped us syphon gas from Chris' truck into mine. We thanked him for his time and headed back the way we came. There was a hotel in the town we came from, where we could bunker down for the night and wait out the storm. But oh no my friend, we were on a quest. So we got the latest road reports and spent the next 6 hours zig zagging through Texas and New Mexico. At 11 pm, after MANY attempts to make our way onto I-25 and becoming honorary members of the tucker sub-culture via a Love's Truck Stop, we got locked down in Las Vegas. No, not that Vegas, Las Vegas New Mexico. No hotels to be had by that time, so we found uncomfortable cots and grumpy old
volunteers at
for lunch (we ate at Subway, although the 72 ounce steak did sound appealing). and we were making record time, but as we got just North of Amarillo we started seeing signs that the road was closed due to weather about 90 miles north of where we were. My friend Jimmy and his Fiance where already in Colorado and sitting in front of a computer, so I designated him Goose to my Maverick. He would periodically call me with updated road reports/closures from the D.O.T. as I was leading the caravan of death through the frozen tundra. For about two hours we were flying north west, attempting to swing around the road closures while making northern progress. We then were thrown a dirty curve ball. We had traveled so far into the middle of nowhere that we were left with only one option to head north. It was "closed". We decided that closed was relative and we headed down the "closed" road.
I was on less than a quarter tank of gas, no problem since the next town was in 19 miles, and the first two miles of closed road were in better condition than the open roads we took to get this far. Within the next mile the road turned AWFUL. More awful than that..the next town didn't exist, then town that was 10 miles past that, Amistad, wasn't as much of a town as it was a cultish compound consisting of a Methodist church, a 1a high school and no gas station. Excellent. We reached the point of no return, were forced to turn around by the snow plow company, and found refuge with a farmer named Chuck. This all had the makings of incredible horror movie. Chuck ended up being one of the nicest men I have ever met. Even when we knocked on his door during an ice storm. He found an old hose in his hog barn, helped us syphon gas from Chris' truck into mine. We thanked him for his time and headed back the way we came. There was a hotel in the town we came from, where we could bunker down for the night and wait out the storm. But oh no my friend, we were on a quest. So we got the latest road reports and spent the next 6 hours zig zagging through Texas and New Mexico. At 11 pm, after MANY attempts to make our way onto I-25 and becoming honorary members of the tucker sub-culture via a Love's Truck Stop, we got locked down in Las Vegas. No, not that Vegas, Las Vegas New Mexico. No hotels to be had by that time, so we found uncomfortable cots and grumpy old
volunteers at the make shift Red Cross shelter in the local elementary school.
The story gets exceedingly less interesting from 4 am the next morning on. They did have delecious Daylight Donuts
for us as we headed out to find open highways. Highlights of the rest of the trip: my friend Chris fell so hard he had to be taken down the mountain by ski patrol on one of those rad little sleds and we watched Boise State amazingly upset Oklahoma.
I hope next years trip provides a little excitement.
1 comment:
Fantastic story. Great blog. However, didn't the story of James Kim...the guy who died while trying to find help for his family, after driving down a "Closed Road"...at all come to mind when driving down the closed road? I saw an episode of "I Shouldn't Be Alive" a few months ago, and it was about a guy making his way to a funeral. Missed a turn, ended up 25 miles from anything, with nothing but the icy tundra surrounding him. He got frostbite. Your story would have been alot cooler if you lost a toe or two because of frostbite. But it's cool, it was still a nice adventure.
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