Vacation 2015 has the Colorado Christian Writer’s Conference and visiting my wife’s sister and brother-in-law as the center pieces for our trip. We departed home on Saturday morning. About an hour west of home, we ran into ur first bad weather. From Decatur, Texas to Wichita Fallas, Texas we had lightning, thunder and torrential rain. Just south of Wichita Fallas we had a break in the rain and ran into an impressive roll cloud. Miss Benita wasn’t impressed as I gave her a Sheldon Cooper like explanation of roll clouds stating they are usually formed by outflows of cold air from sea breezes or cold fronts in the absence of thunderstorms.
We had about fifty miles of clear skies before running into the next rain just west of Electra, Texas. Again we had a break in the weather from Quanah, Texas to Childress. From Childress to Clyde, Texas it was torrential rain, lightning, and wind. When we stopped for gasoline and lunch in Clyde, we found Clyde had a tornado hit it about 3 hours earlier.
From Clyde, we went to Amarillo. With the proper cell tower coverage in town, I called my nearly 90 years old dad and talked about twenty minutes. Next we headed to Dumas, Dalhart and Texline, Texas. The New Mexico state line greeted us with high winds. We stopped in Clayton, New Mexico where I asked Miss Benita to drive. She drove te 85 miles from Clayton to Raton, New Mexico at a snail-like fifty-five miles per hour with forty miles per hour cross winds buffeting the car. I awoke from a car nap just east of Raton. We turned north on I-25 and headed through Raton Pass and its high winds. At 4:15 MST we pulled off the freeway in Trinidad, Colorado. The first place we saw was named herbal peace with a giant peace sign and marijuana leaf on the building. We turned there and headed to the Colorado welcome center. The temperature was a cool forty-three de.grees. We ate and headed toward Denver.
North of Pueblo, we ran into rain. Winter greeted us in Colorado Springs as the pouring rain instantly turned into blizzard like conditions; I drove through heavy blowing snow the last three and one-half hours. Where I arrived in Denver and then in Aurora, there was already 12 inches of snow. Saturday night we had another 6 to 9 inches. It is 29 degrees with winds from the north at 25 with gusts to 30 mph. Wind chill is about 10 degrees.
Sunday morning I had coffee and writing in Aurora, Co before going to church. We had over a foot of snow. I walked about 200 yards through the snow and freezing weather to church. My brother-in-law pastors a mission church on the far east side of Aurora. It is in a large mobile home park. The picture is from my bedroom/writing room window. They had a nice writing area set up for me. Writer’s write!
Sunday afternoon we had lunch with brother-in-law, Mike Alexander, his wife Rosemary Alexander, his son Michael Alexander, Jenn Knowles, and Benita Kepler. The snow has started melting. I napped for almost five hours. I got up about six PM watched TV with family, ate and went to bed by 8 PM. I slept until 4:30 AM and have been up since reading and writing this. Next, I’ll go back to working on my novel.
And so goes the first two days of vacation 2015.
