Running from the snow

We've had this little Vegas getaway planned for months now but it turns out that the timing was perfect. The weather in Vail has been pretty pleasant lately but the weather people kept threatening us with winter storm watches and reports that a foot of snow could fall on the mountains. I do like snow but I'm not sure I'm quite ready for the change. I am definitely still in the capris and chacos mindset. For goodness sake, I wore a summer dress to church on Sunday because it was so nice outside! But that doesn't mean anything to mother nature. It's kind of funny, the last time we came to Vegas we left a night earlier then planned because we were trying to outrun a winter storm.

That said, yesterday at about 5:30am we pulled out of our driveway and hit the road for an expected 9.5-10 hour drive to the desert. It was chilly and rainy but no snow. The drive out of the valley was a bit wet as we ran into lots of rain. Each time we hit another bank of clouds and drove through another rainstorm we speculated that this system must be the front that the weather man kept referring to. It wasn't until Utah that we actually found the front we had been looking for. As we were driving up a mountain pass with a max elevation similar to our house we found the snow. Just a little at first but it hit with a vengence a little ways up the hill. The road was slushy then coated with a layer of snow that had us praying that our all-season tires would hold on for the ride. We discovered later that someone had deemed the storm worthy of salt when we reached Vegas and found a nice layer of it stuck to the bottom panels of the car.

Thankfully, Vegas does not know what real snow looks like and we were greeted by warm temps and sunny skies. It was a wonderful feeling changing out of jeans and boots into capris and chacos during the first 10 minutes of our stay. Ah the desert, gotta love it!
Last night we further rejoiced at our good fortune when we started receiving updates from home saying that snow had hit the valley. Not the mountain tops, the valley. Talk about good timing! We outran the storm again!! Oh how the pool below our window is calling my name! Enjoy your snow Vail, I'm going to work on my tan!!