September 12th . . . that's still officially summer, right?

A summer's day out our car window in Colorado

We spent most of the morning sweating in the heat of the high desert. First it was the red cliffs in Arches National Park. Then we took another incredible road through Utah, A/C on, a way of avoiding the MegaInterState. (much more on that later).

We admitted defeat with the clock and joined I-70 in eastern Utah. We had to, time is ticking and Brian has a plane to catch.

I-70 into the Rockies is not bad at all for an interstate, winding, river following, almost desolate . . . my kind of road . . . and the speed limit, which everyone exceeds whenever possible, is 75mph. All in all, good road.

We were getting pretty high, elevation-ally speaking, when I noticed we were losing speed. A second later the blobs on the windshield revealed the reason. It was sleeting, soon we were in a full fledged snow fall.

Snow is not to be laughed at in the mountains, even if it's still summer. So happens, I didn't feel like laughing. I like a good mountain drive, trucks going full tilt down hill, then crawling up the next incline. It is an adventure. But, suddenly, I am fearing for my passengers.

It got worse before it got better. We finally pulled off to the strange rest stop because in the middle of this, Lucy needed to go outside . . NOW! I jumped out of the car, clad in shorts, to meet the equvilant of a Michigan December.

By the time we got back on the road, though, it eased up. The sun came out, life was beautiful and the whole experience was now a subject of relieved laughter.

Life is like that once in awhile. You fear for your life one minute and the next you are laughing in relief at another close call.

One other thing. This all happened on Loveland Pass . . . Ginny Loveland, Gary Loveland . . . you got some Splainin' to do.

- - - David

After the storm, Brian about to get hit with a snowball