Hello snowbirds,
Being a Midwesterner, blizzards are not all that uncommon to me. I
remember several. I wonder if the 1947 is correct? My first trip West
was in early 1949 and everyone was saying that this was the worst snow
that they could remember.
Four of us, myself, a couple of friends and a Ferret, had left Northwest
Missouri on our way West. About sundown, we stopped for gas in Fort
Sumner New Mexico and were told that it was snowing about twenty miles
further west, but being a "flatlander" and not understanding the
mountain weather, since it certainly didn't look like snow there, I
dismissed the warning.
We arrived in Socorro NM about day break the next day and stopped at a
restaurant for breakfast. They told us that we were the only car through
on Hwy 60 that night. The snow wasn't that heavy, but it was difficult
to tell if you were on a highway or a country road most of the time.
They also told us the that about twenty miles west on Hwy 60 the road
was blocked. Well, we had received warnings before that I thought had
been overstated, so we continued on. This time we should have heeded the
warning. The road was blocked by a jack-knifed tractor trailer rig, so
we turned around and went back to Socorro and continued south to Deming
where we were stopped by the authorities. We spent the night sleeping in
the isles of the movie theater. The road west was accepting one-way
traffic only and we were allowed to proceed the next day while the
east-bound traffic was stopped somewhere west of Deming.
When we arrived in Tucson AZ, I thought it was a paradise. Green lawns,
swimming pools and sunshine. It had been quite an adventure for a 19
year old country boy. As I said, snow was not a problem for me, I grew
up in ice and snow. I was driving a 1936 Ford sedan and didn't even have
a set of chains, but I was going around cars with chains who were having
trouble navigating the slick roads. Although I didn't know it at the
time, I suppose that this was training for driving at high speed on the
Salt.
I also spent a couple of Winters in Bottineau and Rugby North Dakota.
Good reasons to live in sunny California where I can look to the
mountains and see snow anytime of the year, but seldom have to deal with
it unless I want to.
Tom, Redding CA - #216 D/GCC
/// unsubscribe/change address requests to majordomo@autox.team.net or try
/// http://www.team.net/mailman/listinfo
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive/land-speed
/// what is needed. It isn't that difficult, folks.
|