I read LC Neal's post this morning.  Her writing reminded me of my incredible daily commute while living in Colorado.

I grew up in Oklahoma, an area so damned flat you could stand on your front porch and watch your dog run away for three days.   Pitching mounds were outlawed in high school baseball because the pitchers were constantly getting nose bleeds and the breaks on your car lasted at a minimum of twenty years.  Hell, when I left my home town for college in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in the “foothills of the Ozarks,” a dizzying 797 feet above sea level, I thought I’d moved to the Swiss Alps.

I longed for the hills as a kid.  I saw pictures of the Rocky Mountains and my imagination would captivate me for days, dreaming of tall pines, soaring eagles and bears, the sound of waterfalls crashing against the rocks and the feel of cold, snow-laden air.

At the tender age of 46, my childhood dream came true when I took a job in Durango, Colorado

Being the adventurous sort, I moved my family to a resort area thirty miles northeast of town and ten times the height of my "Okie Alps" college adventure to an area called Vallecito.  We moved in October and when my employees and coworkers discovered that we were living in Vallecito I became the recipient of many chuckles and wide-eyed expressions; “you’re going to drive thirty miles to work every day?”

I was as perplexed as they were; I’d commuted thirty miles or more for the last fifteen years and prior to my health care career, had driven a truck countless miles, all in the horrific traffic of Southern California.  Icy, snowy roads were of no concern to me, as they were a common encounter during my youth in Oklahoma.  No big deal I thought to myself.

The first snow came in early November, just a few inches.  Yep!  No big deal.  Then the second and the third; the fourth snow came during the night. I awoke at the usual 4:30 am, made coffee and looked out the window into the dark.  Something was very different, but it was still dark, so I didn’t give it much thought.  I poured my coffee turned the outside light on and walked out onto the deck.  I could only stand, gasp and stare.  All I could see was white, from the ground up to about 2 feet from the roof’s overhang, ominous, deafening white.  My coffee damned near froze before my mind could grasp what was before me.  I had never seen so much snow and was as giddy as a ten year old boy at Christmas.

Excited, I pushed my feet into my snow boots, my hands into my gloves and donned my slicker then wrestled my way to the garage, fifty feet from the house.  Fortunately, I was forewarned by co-workers to leave shovels on the porches if I was going to live in such a place.  With the sound of the Los Pinos River a hundred yards away rushing towards Vallecito Lake making virtually the only noise around, I felt as though I had awakened on a different planet.  Had it not been for the river, the absolute silence would have been uneasy.

I finally made it into the garage where I had a monstrous snow-blower, the kind with caterpillar tracks, push-button starter and all.  I cranked it up and 3 hours later a path just large enough for my Jeep had been cleared from my house to the portion of the dirt road the county had ploughed.  The obligatory call to the boss to tell him I’d be a bit late, he chuckled, well more like roared, but I didn’t get the message.  Yet!

As I left my bewildered wife behind and headed off to work, it felt as though I was driving through a tunnel.  The drifts created by the plough were at least eight feet high.  The road signs and many of the smaller trees had disappeared.  The massive pines that lined both sides of the road were covered with snow and as the sun peaked over the mountain-tops its rays reflected off the snowflakes, sparkling like a billion Christmas tree lights against the azure sky.  The scene was breathtaking.

Crossing the bridge (completely free of side-rails) over the small stream that ran just past the house to the river, the tires crunched against the snow.  The bridge seemed far smaller and the wooden planks used to build the bridge creaked much louder than I remembered the days before as I inched my way across.

Watching the stream pass below the bridge’s edge, just inches away from the Jeep’s tires that pushed the snow from the bridge into the rushing, icy water, suddenly visions of tow trucks and a frozen walk back to the house crept into my mind.  I made it out to the "paved road" and skirted my way along the shores of Vallecito Reservoir, amazed at the deer walking across the lake in herds.  I would later take carrots and apples, stopping to throw a few out onto the ice.  They were usually gone at the trip home, so either the deer got them or some hungry ice-fisher folks didn't go home hungry.

I was the first to make the trek along the dirt road that morning, something I found oddly exhilarating.  Yeehaa, explorer!!  I later discovered that only about twenty people lived in my sparse “neighborhood” behind Wits End Ranch during the winter, realizing that not only was I the first, but often the only moron that ventured out on such days.  “Snow days” were a common event that left much of the hospital empty of its staff.  I finally understood why the boss was so amused.

There was a certain comfort in the snow drifts along the road to work.  If a driver erred, there was normally a cushion of snow preventing certain catastrophe.   The semi-comfort of those drifts disappeared in an instant at the halfway point between home and work; the curve that would pump adrenaline through the heart on a dry summer’s day.  On those good days, cars passed so closely the drivers could easily high-five one another.  On snow-filled days, even the drifts disappeared down the three hundred foot drop into a frozen lake below.   The religious stopped and prayed while I and the rest of the impious hoped like hell there would be no opposing traffic.

Stopping on icy roads and hugging the mountainside so closely that the droplets of water frozen to the granite wall were visible through the passenger window was a must to allow the outside car to pass, a skill that must be learned quickly lest both cars end up in the frozen lake below. Colorado is a strange place for drivers.  NO side rails on the mountain drives, but the flatlands are littered with them.

The steep hill entering Durango was simply a measure of pure luck.  When entering the town, traffic was at a constant standstill at the first intersection.  Stopping was planned two miles before one even saw the intersection, using gears and tapping breaks ever so gently.  Once a driver succeeded in stopping, there was no guarantee that all things were good, as the tires often lost traction even at a dead stop.  Thankfully, everyone had heavy-duty bumpers and drivers were fairly good natured about becoming part of a long chain of bumps.

Aside from the adrenaline that coursed through my veins, the drive was beyond magnificent; beautiful ranches with massive snow-covered pastures in each of the valleys along the way seemed as white carpeted floors containing vast herds of elk and deer against a backdrop of dark green pines and gray winter skies.  Those same pastures re-carpeted in lush green in summer then crimson, orange and yellow appeared as though the green pines were afire in the fall.  The occasional black bear lazily strolled down the middle of the road, bald eagles, stellar's jays and magpies littered the skies, the ever-present lakes and the Los Pinos River.  Unfortunately, I never saw the coveted mountain lion, but did in fact discover a fresh deer kill just a few hundred feet from the house, surrounded by mountain lion tracks. 

All of this in just a very short, thirty mile commute.

Vallecito Lake in winter

Vallecito Lake in summer

Vallecito Lake in fall

My well traveled dirt road, alongside Wits End Ranch, to my humble abode deep in Sherwood Forest