Until Further Notice

“Don’t you think we should turn back?” I asked my husband when the snow surrounded us completely. “What if that happens again?”

“I’ll slow down, ” John said. Excellent - we’d plummet slowly to our deaths.

Just over the pass ten-foot amber lights announced:

Highway 87 Closed Until Further Notice. (Futher, rather, it seems...)

“Get the one with the pool,” I said, pointing to the Comfort Inn.

The next day I watched horizontal snow while all roads heading out of New Mexico were systematically closed.

“They’ve set up a shelter at the high school gymnasium,” John said. This conjured scary images confirmed by tales of National Guard cots and Red Cross soup.

For lunch we planned to stuff ourselves at McDonald’s so we wouldn’t have to brave the icy evening. We ordered several super-sized meals, downed them, and got more.

“Here, finish this off,” John said, shoving a mostly eaten cheeseburger at me.

“Ugh,” I grunted, then ate it. The nutritional value of food eaten under duress doesn’t count. No calories, no carbs, no fat grams. Remember that next time you are snowbound in the vicinity of a Big Mac. Or two.

Although I had hoarded my share of oatmeal packets and cherry Danishes at breakfast, I feared we could run short of food.

“We need emergency supplies,” I announced.

We four-wheeled it to the grocery store for peanut butter & jelly, bread, and Oreos. I grabbed a tabloid too because that’s another vice that doesn’t count in a blizzard.

The second night I surfed the web, read, and checked email while the kids bickered in the background. John watched man TV – Pussy Galore and Goldfinger. Just like home. Except at home I had laundry and cooking. My extended vacation offered maids and Nintendo DS to babysit the kids.

The third day in Shangri-La, we questioned what would happen in the event of a true emergency. Would we hear that alarming BEEEEP from the radio and TV directing us where to go and what to do? ? No one seemed to be in charge.

I became an expert at tracking expected snowfall and wind speed, at finding highways on maps. I knew the wind whipped off the mesa on 87 caused fifteen-foot snowdrifts, which had claimed one of the two snowplows in town. I knew Vegas, Raton Pass, and Springer like a local.

The next morning we woke to open roads and hit them. Flat, snow-covered land never looked so good. Sunshine and ice-covered grasses turned the sparse landscape into a diamond-encrusted dream. But just short of the Promised Land of Texas, the road closed again.

“It’s ten miles to the state line,” I said. “Go for it!”

When we gunned it around the roadblock that held us hostage, ten cars followed.

Just over the Texas line, the snow began to grow around us and I felt my gut tighten. We saw the backside of another roadblock. Thankfully, the officer on duty looked the other way while we drove past it through a space just wide enough for one car.

Ahead lay bare pavement and the Texas plains. I wanted to hang out the window and lift my top in victory. I settled instead for a whoop-whoop fist pump out the passenger side window.

Then I put all future travel plans on hold - until further notice.