Dear Michael,<\/p>\n
As we departed our Topeka motel with fearless driver Patrick<\/a> manning the truck, we all realized that today would be the last day of our journey into the golden west. We’d been watching the weather channel each night, and now examined the grasslands closely for the promised signs of snow. On and on we drove through the endless prairies <\/a>, livened only by the occasional oil well drilling into the earth with its proboscus driving into the flesh of the earth like a giant mosquito. Aha! Near Abilene (birthplace of Dwight D. Eisenhower, according to the informative billboards) we started to see patches of snow on the northward slopes around the road. The snow gradually became more extensive, until about 100 mi from the Colorado border the snow was continuous, covering the corn stubble in the farms to either side. We stopped at a Starbucks<\/a> surrounded by oddly situated pseudo palms in the snow.<\/p>\n The wind gusted enough to make the truck steering a little dicey. At one point we slowed to a crawl seeing cars strewed in random directions on the road. There had been ground blizzards, and ice on the road made a couple of cars spin out of control, one in the median strip gully, and the other in the ditch to the right. Luckily for them, some kind soul in a pickup was using a chain to drag cars back onto the road. By the time we left Kansas at the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign<\/a> the road was clear, but the wind continued to gust.<\/p>\n Unknown to us, roads into Boulder were beginning to be closed due to high winds. At about the time we hit the Denver-Boulder turnpike, I 25 was closed between Denver and Fort Collins due to ground blizzards. Colo. 119 between Golden and Boulder was closed, as was the Longmont-Boulder “diagonal” highway. Blissfully ignorant of this, we tooled into Boulder onto the Foothills Parkway, turned East on Valmont road, and a few minutes later we were parking the car at Edison and Galileo streets opposite our Darwin Ct home. We’d been hearing about the 48 in of snow Boulder had had over the past 3 weeks. It was too dark to see, but maybe in the morning we’d see some big drifts.<\/p>\n Using the keys that our friend Fred Thrall had been keeping for us, we hauled in our foam pads, blankets and sleeping bags, and hit the hay. That night the banshees woke us up with their howls. Through the skylights over our bed we could see the bare limbs of trees swinging around, but no wind damage was done in our neighborhood. The wind speed got up to 115 mph <\/a>, so it was a true “Chinook” (a down-slope over 90 mph). The next day dawned clear and warm, a perfect day for unloading <\/a> the truck (that doesn’t look like 48 in of snow!) . Elsewhere in the Boulder area, some home and cars had been damaged by flying debris, but we saw no obvious damage ourselves. Patrick drove up to Lake Eldora ski area for a few hours of well-earned snow boarding. Our skier friends, Chuck & Esther, said that Eldora probably has the best snow in Colorado right now. Considering the poor snow in the East and in Europe, it may be the best snow in the world!<\/p>\n By early afternoon, with the help of Boulder friends and a couple of hired kids, we filled the house with boxes. In the coming weeks it would be like Christmas every day, with hundreds of boxes containing only dimly guessed stuff which we can open at our leisure, being surprised over and over again.<\/p>\n rakkity & the Mrs<\/p>\n We won’t get a phone until 8 am, Jan 15 (303 449 2125). DSL will be available from 5 pm (we hope).<\/p>\n Gallery<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Michael, As we departed our Topeka motel with fearless driver Patrick manning the truck, we all realized that today would be the last day of our journey into the golden west. We’d been watching the weather channel each night, … Continue reading
![Patrick<\/a> manning the truck, we all realized that today would be the last day of our journey into the golden west. We’d been watching the weather channel each night, and now examined the grasslands closely for the promised signs of snow. On and on we drove through the](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/blog\/westward\/album\/slides\/10-4good_buddy0610.jpg\"){kind=link}
![endless prairies <\/a>, livened only by the occasional oil well drilling into the earth with its proboscus driving into the flesh of the earth like a giant mosquito. Aha! Near Abilene (birthplace of Dwight D. Eisenhower, according to the informative billboards) we started to see patches of snow on the northward slopes around the road. The snow gradually became more extensive, until about 100 mi from the Colorado border the snow was continuous, covering the corn stubble in the farms to either side. We stopped at a](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/blog\/westward\/album\/slides\/kansas_prairie0614.jpg\"){kind=link}
![Starbucks<\/a> surrounded by oddly situated pseudo palms in the snow.<\/p>\nThe wind gusted enough to make the truck steering a little dicey. At one point we slowed to a crawl seeing cars strewed in random directions on the road. There had been ground blizzards, and ice on the road made a couple of cars spin out of control, one in the median strip gully, and the other in the ditch to the right. Luckily for them, some kind soul in a pickup was using a chain to drag cars back onto the road. By the time we left Kansas at the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign<\/a> the road was clear, but the wind continued to gust.<\/p>\nUnknown to us, roads into Boulder were beginning to be closed due to high winds. At about the time we hit the Denver-Boulder turnpike, I 25 was closed between Denver and Fort Collins due to ground blizzards. Colo. 119 between Golden and Boulder was closed, as was the Longmont-Boulder “diagonal” highway. Blissfully ignorant of this, we tooled into Boulder onto the Foothills Parkway, turned East on Valmont road, and a few minutes later we were parking the car at Edison and Galileo streets opposite our Darwin Ct home. We’d been hearing about the 48 in of snow Boulder had had over the past 3 weeks. It was too dark to see, but maybe in the morning we’d see some big drifts.<\/p>\nUsing the keys that our friend Fred Thrall had been keeping for us, we hauled in our foam pads, blankets and sleeping bags, and hit the hay. That night the banshees woke us up with their howls. Through the skylights over our bed we could see the bare limbs of trees swinging around, but no wind damage was done in our neighborhood. The wind speed got up to 115 mph <\/a>, so it was a true “Chinook” (a down-slope over 90 mph). The next day dawned clear and warm, a perfect day for unloading <\/a> the truck (that doesn’t look like 48 in of snow!) . Elsewhere in the Boulder area, some home and cars had been damaged by flying debris, but we saw no obvious damage ourselves. Patrick drove up to Lake Eldora ski area for a few hours of well-earned snow boarding. Our skier friends, Chuck & Esther, said that Eldora probably has the best snow in Colorado right now. Considering the poor snow in the East and in Europe, it may be the best snow in the world!<\/p>\nBy early afternoon, with the help of Boulder friends and a couple of hired kids, we filled the house with boxes. In the coming weeks it would be like Christmas every day, with hundreds of boxes containing only dimly guessed stuff which we can open at our leisure, being surprised over and over again.<\/p>\nrakkity & the Mrs<\/p>\nWe won’t get a phone until 8 am, Jan 15 (303 449 2125). DSL will be available from 5 pm (we hope).<\/p>\nGallery<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Michael, As we departed our Topeka motel with fearless driver Patrick manning the truck, we all realized that today would be the last day of our journey into the golden west. We’d been watching the weather channel each night, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rakkity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/blog\/westward\/album\/slides\/kansaspalms0633.jpg\"){kind=link}
![sign<\/a> the road was clear, but the wind continued to gust.<\/p>\nUnknown to us, roads into Boulder were beginning to be closed due to high winds. At about the time we hit the Denver-Boulder turnpike, I 25 was closed between Denver and Fort Collins due to ground blizzards. Colo. 119 between Golden and Boulder was closed, as was the Longmont-Boulder “diagonal” highway. Blissfully ignorant of this, we tooled into Boulder onto the Foothills Parkway, turned East on Valmont road, and a few minutes later we were parking the car at Edison and Galileo streets opposite our Darwin Ct home. We’d been hearing about the 48 in of snow Boulder had had over the past 3 weeks. It was too dark to see, but maybe in the morning we’d see some big drifts.<\/p>\nUsing the keys that our friend Fred Thrall had been keeping for us, we hauled in our foam pads, blankets and sleeping bags, and hit the hay. That night the banshees woke us up with their howls. Through the skylights over our bed we could see the bare limbs of trees swinging around, but no wind damage was done in our neighborhood. The wind speed got up to 115 mph <\/a>, so it was a true “Chinook” (a down-slope over 90 mph). The next day dawned clear and warm, a perfect day for unloading <\/a> the truck (that doesn’t look like 48 in of snow!) . Elsewhere in the Boulder area, some home and cars had been damaged by flying debris, but we saw no obvious damage ourselves. Patrick drove up to Lake Eldora ski area for a few hours of well-earned snow boarding. Our skier friends, Chuck & Esther, said that Eldora probably has the best snow in Colorado right now. Considering the poor snow in the East and in Europe, it may be the best snow in the world!<\/p>\nBy early afternoon, with the help of Boulder friends and a couple of hired kids, we filled the house with boxes. In the coming weeks it would be like Christmas every day, with hundreds of boxes containing only dimly guessed stuff which we can open at our leisure, being surprised over and over again.<\/p>\nrakkity & the Mrs<\/p>\nWe won’t get a phone until 8 am, Jan 15 (303 449 2125). DSL will be available from 5 pm (we hope).<\/p>\nGallery<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Michael, As we departed our Topeka motel with fearless driver Patrick manning the truck, we all realized that today would be the last day of our journey into the golden west. We’d been watching the weather channel each night, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rakkity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/blog\/westward\/album\/slides\/welcome2colorado0634.jpg\"){kind=link}
![115 mph <\/a>, so it was a true “Chinook” (a down-slope over 90 mph). The next day dawned clear and warm, a perfect day for](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/blog\/westward\/album\/slides\/blown_away0651%201.jpg\"){kind=link}
![unloading <\/a> the truck (that doesn’t look like 48 in of snow!) . Elsewhere in the Boulder area, some home and cars had been damaged by flying debris, but we saw no obvious damage ourselves. Patrick drove up to Lake Eldora ski area for a few hours of well-earned snow boarding. Our skier friends, Chuck & Esther, said that Eldora probably has the best snow in Colorado right now. Considering the poor snow in the East and in Europe, it may be the best snow in the world!<\/p>\nBy early afternoon, with the help of Boulder friends and a couple of hired kids, we filled the house with boxes. In the coming weeks it would be like Christmas every day, with hundreds of boxes containing only dimly guessed stuff which we can open at our leisure, being surprised over and over again.<\/p>\nrakkity & the Mrs<\/p>\nWe won’t get a phone until 8 am, Jan 15 (303 449 2125). DSL will be available from 5 pm (we hope).<\/p>\nGallery<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Michael, As we departed our Topeka motel with fearless driver Patrick manning the truck, we all realized that today would be the last day of our journey into the golden west. We’d been watching the weather channel each night, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rakkity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/blog\/westward\/album\/slides\/unloading_the_truck0643.jpg\"){kind=link}