December 30th 2007

Well as I said in the last post, I would post more about the weekend while were over at my mom and dad..I just had to load pictures from my phone to the computer to do that. So, on Sunday we decided we were going to go to Salida to go swimming. We had a blast swimming the warm water. We went to eat at a really good restaurant in Salida, and then hit the Wal-Mart before we ventured home. While we were swimming, my dad, who had stayed home because he had a head cold, had called mom and told her that it was a blizzard at home, and to just be careful when we headed home. As we were leaving Salida at about 8:30pm, it had just stared to snow light flakes there, but as we headed up Monarch the snow was getting heavier and the wind was blowing something fierce. At times it was snowing and blowing so hard Clay had a hard time seeing. As we went around one corner, we noticed that the big slide, and slide and was blocking the West bound lanes of the pass. So I called dispatch and let them know about it and they were going to let CDOT know. We continued and go to the top of Monarch, and there we sat. About 4 cars and a semi and us. It was snowing and blowing so hard at times we couldn't see the car lights in front of us. We were able to call dad and let him know where we were at, and we would keep him posted when we heading down the hill. Thanks to the latest technology, I was able to get on the internet via my phone and check the CDOT website to see if the road was closed or what was going on. After sitting there for about 35 minutes I checked the internet again, and they had closed Monarch Pass because of weather conditions. The snow plows just couldn't keep up with the snow and blowing and that is why we weren't able to go home. But at about 9:00 we did finally see vehicles come up the pass, and thought soon it would be our turn to continue the last 15 miles of our venture. We sat and sat and sat. Finally about 9:35 we were starting to move again. The tow truck and snow plow lead the way, and we just followed. The road was down to one lane, with about a foot of snow everywhere. But we made it back to mom and dad safely, no problems. In the 20 some years that I lived there, I can say, I have never sat on top of Monarch Pass because of snow. Something else to write down in the history book. It was an adventure, and after all it was fun.
The top of Monarch Pass where we sat!
Crazy huh!!!
In front of us
Looking behind us
Pretty white

After the snow plow had come up the mountain, cars continued to follow, but couldn't go anywhere.
Clay not to happy
Granma and Chance being goofy
Kaylie didn't mind sitting in traffic!!