The trip itself only had two areas of winter weather. The first time was in southern Minnesota & northern Iowa. It was a freezing rain after dark. Tough driving but Stephanie handled it very well albeit with more than a little stress! The second time was after we left my son's house in Denver. Interstate 70 was in the early phase of a snow storm so the driving after dark in a storm in the Rockies was, shall we say, tense. However, by the time we got to Vail, the storm was much milder and we took a few minutes to simply see and soak up the marvelous Christmas decorations.
So why Denver? As you know, I drove from San Francisco to Duluth the prior week in my Humette (aka Honda Element), primarily on I-80 with a detour to spend a day with my son's family.
One worrisome thing about winter driving is the very frequent signs that say "When (the lights are) Flashing, Chains Required". Well, it turns out a 4 wheel drive with snow tires qualifies as a 'chained' vehicle so no problem with Humette--it is 4WD with snow tires on it. We researched state law and found Colorado has a $600 fine for not carrying chains and a $1,300 fine for getting stuck in a chain zone without them.
But we were driving Stephanie's Honda Accord back to Los Gatos. And it has all season tires, not snow tires. Well, a set of snow tires is outrageous in cost considering we have virtually no need for them in San Francisco. But a set of chains is very modest in cost.
Finding a set of chains in stock in Minnesota, Iowa or eastern Nebraska is impossible. There are stores in western Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado that do stock them, but they tend to have very limited hours on Saturday, like 9 to noon. There was no way we could get there by noon.
So we went to plan B. On Saturday morning as we left Lincoln Nebraska, I asked my son in Denver to pick up a set of chains that we'd swing by the house and pick up sometime later on Saturday.
Stopping at Chris & Casey's solved another problem too. Robbie is diabetic so he needs to eat and receive his insulin on a pretty tight schedule. Friday night we fed him in a parking lot with howling winds and temperatures in the teens. Although Robbie seemed to eat well, Stephanie was, as I said it then, 'a bit edgy' during the feeding process. I recall words about 'never again' and nasty things I cannot repeat.
Stopping at Chris & Casey's solved that too. Perfect!
The last thing we did before leaving Denver was check the route and weather to Los Gatos. Much to my surprise, when I plugged in my Los Gatos address in from Chris' place, the shorter route was Interstate 70 to Interstate 15 through Las Vegas to Barstow, Bakersfield and into Los Gatos.
The weather.com site showed winter storms along I-80 around Salt Lake City. And just the beginning of a storm immediately west of Denver.
We kept our visit short with Chris, Casey and the grand kids and headed east on I-70 pronto. The first miles were tense but the snowfall stopped by the time we got to Vail. We did a driving tour of Vail with their gorgeous Christmas decorations. A nice, relaxing thing to do after the rough drive out of Denver.
For our second night, we stayed in Grand Island, Colorado.
The next day, we had the most beautiful drive through Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Arizona. Somewhere along I-15 we learned during a pit stop from another couple who were Salt Lake City police officers heading out for the holidays that I-80 was nothing but snowstorms, crashes and bumper cars for two days. Wow, were we lucky!
Stephanie has never been to Las Vegas so we toured the strip. She was stunned! We fed Robbie in a parking lot that evening too, but in Las Vegas the temperature was more like 70 than 17.
From Barstow to Los Gatos was an easy drive on a sunny day. We arrived at 4pm, the time we were to meet our movers. After a quick tour of the new place, I met the movers at the storage facility and by 7:30 pm we had a bed, sofa and dining room table set up!
We were home!
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