Bittersweet Holiday Blizzard of '06

Welcome back to Deep Thoughts by Fergie! Hard to believe it's been almost a year to the day since my last post. Well anyone who's not living in cave has probably heard about the aptly named "Holiday Blizzard" dumping massive amounts of snow on the entire square state of Colorado. It never ceases to amaze me how these things start off so benignly, showing up as a solitary "40% chance of snow" blip a week out on the weather channel forecast. Who'd have known that it would turn into such a beast? I threw a minor hissy fit when the meteorologists forecast snow to start on Tuesday, yet repeated checks yielded only a bright sunny sky. Not a single cloud! Who are they kidding? But like magic, when I woke Wednesday morning there was a heavy dusting of snow and the skies showed no sign of relenting. In fact, once at work we watched it continue to fall furiously thick outside our office window. So much snow was due to fall that management ordered every Denver based Lockheed Martin facility to be shutdown by 1:00. Salaried employees were given a special "Natural Disaster" charge number; we contractors were not so lucky. (Except that we were mandated a day off, so I can't really complain!)

While the boys at work frantically tried to plan out which roads were still open so they could get in prime position to hit the slopes first thing tomorrow, Steve and I concentrated on just getting home. Luckily the plows were out in force so the commute wasn't terrible. I know it seems like all my posts lately have been pictures of our snowy yard, but I can't resist. It's so exciting to have the ordinary world transformed into a wonderland with just a sprinkle of precipitation. And WOW, what a doozy was this one!




I got my wish which was snow beyond my wildest dreams. It came at a cost, though, because the Denver Airport is shut down until Thursday evening, dashing our plans of flying out to New York to see Steve's parents, and brother and sister-in-law for the holidays. We tried to reschedule but were too late, and in the end we opted to cancel this trip instead of arriving at midnight on Christmas Day for a severely truncated visit. We'll be sure to make it up to them later in the year. Guess we'll have to put this new snow to some good use in the meantime.