Our trip to Durango CO this weekend possibly was the most harrowing road trip I've ever taken. To start with, even though we left home before 5pm on Friday and even though we had a prepaid room waiting for us in Durango, we only got as far as Alamosa before we had to concede defeat to the sleet and traffic and find a room in Alamosa for the night. And, man, it was COLD that night!
The next morning, we were up bright and early to resume our trip, but we only made it as far as Southfork (??). We'd seen the snow and ice-covered traffic coming from the other side of Wolf Creek Pass (US 160) all morning, but an avalanche closed the Pass just before we got there, and we were forced to turn back. We pulled over in Del Norte at the first decent convenience store we could find in order to peruse a map and figure out Plan B.
While at the store, I went to change Pumpkin's diaper only to find that it had gotten so soaked that his pants and socks had also gotten wet (ditto my sleeve from where I was holding him). I tried rinsing and drying using the hand dryer in the ladies room, but it was no good so we had to dig out the pants he'd worn the day before. My sweater, unfortunately, was down for the count for the rest of the weekend.
We were taking Pumpkin to Durango to ride the Polar Express, and our reservations were for 5pm that evening. Plan B had us detouring via New Mexico, and we worried that we'd end up missing our train so we opted to have our lunch on-the-go....because even though we'd set out bright and early that morning, it was lunchtime by then, and both Pumpkin and I were feeling a bit sick from hunger. So, we bought ourselves some "gas station sandwiches" and Hot Stuff Pizza and set off again.
We ended up taking Highway 17 from Antonito to Chama before turning onto Highway 84 to Pagosa Springs. Highway 17 is a beautiful and treacherous road that includes two 10k mountain passes (La Manga and Cumbres). Unfortunately for us, it had started snowing again, and fog was setting in. It was so freaking cold that the snow was freezing where it landed on our windshield making visibility that much worse for us. At one point, as we were approaching the second pass, it got so bad that the only thing we could see were those handy little reflector sticks along the edge of the road. I don't know exactly what "white-out" conditions are, but if it means that you can't distinguish earth from sky and all you see is pure white from every window in your vehicle, then I guess we experienced white-out conditions. Even Pumpkin cried out that he was scared. Poor baby.
Here's a picture of the road we were traveling on taken as the fog was setting in, just before we lost visibility. I took it from my seat so what you see is what we we saw. Though it looks like we we'd gone off-roading, in fact, we were driving on a regular old state highway...just covered with snow. It was the last picture we took until we got to Durango because once the fog really settled in, we were too busy clutching the truck's "oh-shit" bars to bother with the camera, haha.
We finally made it back to level ground and pulled over in Pagosa Springs to gas up and grab a cheeseburger for Pumpkin, who hadn't eaten his pizza. We also took the opportunity to locate our tickets and call the Durango-Silverton office to beg them to push back our reservations, which they happily did once we explained the reason for our delay. We rolled info Durango just after 5pm, checked in, changed, and rushed back outside to the train station.
At the station, we waited outside on the platform for the train to pick us up, and we saw the steam and heard the whistle long before we ever saw the train. The snow was blowing, and tunes from The Polar Express movie were blasting through the loudspeakers while kids and their parents excitedly rushed on board. The whole experience was, for lack of a better word, MAGICAL, and seeing the look on Pumpkin's face as he beheld the real, live Polar Express just about made it all worthwhile for both QT and I.
I say "just about" because, as fate would have it, our troubles weren't quite over yet. As we prepared to board the train, we realized that the tickets we were holding, which were the tickets for the earlier ride, had assigned coaches and seat numbers printed on them so we had to run back inside and get our new assignments from the staff at the ticket booth. Because of that delay, we were among the last to board the train, and by the time we found our assigned seats, another couple had already stolen them! When I asked them for our seats, the dude had the nerve to get all bent out of shape as if we were the ones trying to steal their seats. We kept insisting that they get out of our seats, and finally, the couple made as if to move, but then another lady, who appeared to be traveling with them, offered to exchange her seats with ours so that the 3 of us could at least sit across from each other, and the damned fools wouldn't have to get their thieving butts out of our seats. I could see in QT's face that the exchange nearly soured the trip for him, and I felt the same, but we both determined not to let it ruin our fun. For the return trip, QT, Pumpkin, and I crammed ourselves onto one bench anyway so we could sing Christmas carols together. Here's a picture of us riding the Polar Express.
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