Snow in April

If there's one thing I've learned about Denver, CO after living here for almost three years, it's that the weather is completely unpredictable and it can change within a matter of minutes. Case in point, I took the boys to the park Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday because it was so nice and warm, a little windy, but very comfortable. So, today I wake up and start to open a window as I have for the past several days, and it was freezing. That prompted me to look at the weather report, which, much to my chagrin, calls for snow this weekend!! Woe is me!!! As soon as I saw this forecast, I started to remember the other two April snow storms I remember over the past three years. We learned valuable lessons during both, so I think I'll share them with you.

Lesson #1 April 2005 (early April)

I don't remember too many details leading up to this particular weekend, but I do remember it was the Annual Master's Golf Tournament. Kyle was elated that we were "snowed in" because he got to watch all 72 holes of golf without worrying about where he should have been instead of parked in front of the TV. This was before the wonderful days of DVR in our household, so his only chance was to watch it live, or not watch it at all. Well, everything was going great, we were staying warm and enjoying our "family time" until...we ran out of MILK! Now this may not sound like a huge deal, but for those of you who knew Zac at that point in his life, you'll remember that the boy loved him some milk. He needed it for naps and bedtime. I had just weened him a month before so he was very much in love with his bottle at this point in time.

So, Kyle, being the wonderful father and husband that he is, decided he would venture out to Wal-Mart, about 2 miles away, to get some milk.

I bundled him up, made him wear gloves and a beanie, and reviewed all of the rules of driving in the snow on icy roads. Then, he left to brave the white out and several feet of snow already on the ground. About 30 minutes after he left, he called me. I was hoping he'd say, "I just got here to Wal-Mart. Do you need anything else besides milk?" But that was not the case. He said, "I'm stuck." He was stuck literally 1/4 mile from our house and had slid off of the road. My first thought was for him to just walk home. But we couldn't leave our little white car out there in the white out. It would be virtually invisible after an hour or so when the snow covered it again, so we had to do something. Luckily, our friend, Nate, lived right by where Kyle was and he had 4-wheel-drive. So he drove over and pulled Kyle out and helped him get home.

So here's what I learned. It's nothing too profound, but I learned the simple lesson to always be prepared. As members of the church, we are taught to be self-sufficient and to prepare ourselves for such times. Now, I know it's not reasonable to think that milk is one of those necessities of life that we must have in our 72-hour kits, but this experience did make me think about how prepared I was for a more dire situation. Would I have been ready for the a hurricane, or a real blizzard with no access to a grocery store for several days? It's something to think about.


Lesson #2 April 2005 (late April)

Kyle's brother, Nate got married in April of 2005. My brother, Joel, got home from his mission in March of 2005, and we weren't able to go home to NC for his return, so he flew out to Denver in April to join us on our trek to Utah for Nate and Ani's wedding. When we left Denver, it was beautiful weather. We had gone to a few Rockies' games earlier in the week and our ride over to Utah was rather uneventful.

We had a great time in Utah. The wedding was lovely. I was a couple of months pregnant, so all of the wonderful food wasn't as good as it could have been, but still, it was a great trip.

So, the time came to head back. Let me preface this by saying that we are always so cautious and particular about which day we drive home. We look at weather.com, accuweather.com, wunderground.com, cdot.com, etc. The day we picked to travel called for a few flurries in the afternoon, but it was supposed to be a good day for travel, according to all reports.

The first 2/3 of the trip were fine. But, as we started to enter the Vail area. It started to snow. I was driving, so I immediately pulled off and traded Kyle positions. As we headed back on to the highway, Kyle was driving, Joel was co-piloting, and Zac and I were in the back seat. It's an understatement to say that conditions quickly went from bad to worse. Before long, we were in complete white-out conditions. It was snowing so hard and the roads were so bad, we couldn't even see exits until we were past them. We were still climbing to Vail summit, which is about 11,000 feet, I think. I am not exaggerating when I say that 18-wheelers and 4-wheel drive SUV's were literally sliding off of the side of the road in front of us. We were in our 2004 Chevrolet Aveo, a dependable little car but not really the best car to be driving in a snow storm. At one point we literally came to a complete stop, tires spinning under us, as we trudged up the mountain. I was praying, and I know Joel and Kyle were praying, too. Somehow, our tires were able to get a little traction, and we started to progress slowly back up the mountain. Joel made the comment then, which he would explain in greater detail later, "If there's one thing I learned while in Brazil over the past two years, it's that one of the errands of angels is to push cars."

Soon after the Eisenhower Tunnel, we were able to see well enough to locate an exit with a motel in Georgetown, CO. It was a Best Western. It could have been a Motel 6 for all I care! I was just happy to be safe and warm in a hotel room with a gas station directly in front of it.

Later that night, Joel related an experience he had had while in Brazil where he had a pushed a car by himself to help a man whose car had broken down and needed to have a push start. I don't remember the details of the situation, but it seems that the man was desperate to get somewhere, and it was very late at night. After several attempts to push start the car, the man, Joel, and Joel's companion had become exhausted. Joel said that he prayed and prayed as they pushed, and he just closed his eyes and pushed with all of his might. When he finally heard the car start, he opened his eyes to see that he was the only one standing there and that the others were standing several yards back where they had given up. Just as Joel know then that angels had helped him, I know that they helped up on that mountain that night. There's no logical explanation why 4-wheel drive SUV's where sliding off the road and we were able to keep trudging up. I do know that the Lord works in mysterious ways. I have no doubt that his hand was in our safe arrival at the Best Western in Georgetown, CO. But more importantly, I also know that his hand is in the small things that we fail to even realize or acknowledge on a daily basis.

I hope I don't have to learn any important life lessons in this weekend's pending snow storm. But I am thankful for those I learned in the other April snow storms of my life.