I am road hard (My spring road trip/Part 2) Spearfish to Denver

It was snowing when I left Spearfish. I had just said my goodbyes to Lola and we were tearful. Feelings of guilt washed over me as I looked into her 92 year old eyes. I would be back in almost exactly 2 months so that made things a bit easier. Pulling out of the driveway it was hard to believe things would be hot and summery in just 60 days. Snow and sleet slapped at my windshield. Driving west toward Wyoming the precipitation picked up and the fields began getting whiter and whiter. By the time I got to Sundance, the look of winter prevailed (It was April 29.)

I turned south toward Newcastle and advanced toward my goal of Denver. I was at least six hours away. It had been years since I made this drive and it was incredible how the countryside had changed so little. To my left sat Inyan Kara Mountain blanketed in powder. One of General George Custer's men was buried on its summit. The general and an army of over 1,000 had passed through here in 1874 looking for gold so a settler's rush could open up the country for development. One of his prospectors found couple of big nuggets near present day Custer, South Dakota. Their discovery did the trick and the Indians lost big time.

A few miles from the coal mining ghost town of Cambria, I pulled over and took in a sweeping canyon below. It was biting cold and blustery. The door of the Buick was ajar and I could hear Wyoming Public Radio blasting Teri Gross as I photographed the Black Hills expanse that lay beneath. How fun to have been a hawk or eagle and just glide off over such rugged terrain. I shivered and jumped back in the car.

 Newcastle was dry and on the brink of dusty. The 3 or 4 inches of snow had run out near the 4 Corners area west of Ice Box Canyon, about 20 miles before. The wind was raging across the Wyoming plains and barely a glimpse of spring had brushed this country. Green grass was sprouting in the barrow pits and that was about it. This stretch of highway was remarkably frozen in time. Just about everything looked like it did the first time I rode with my parents to Denver in 1965. It was great to see and made my drive feel timeless. At one point I stopped and took a picture of the infamous "Boner Ranch" sign. It is pronounced "Bonner" but the uninformed wouldn't know.

I passed through Lusk (also in amber) and glanced at the gas station who's owner had allowed my friend Debra and me to give him an IOU back in 1973. She and I had just been in Denver visiting my sister and her aunt. I was a junior in high school and she a college freshman. Believe it or not both sets of our parents agreed to let us take my mother's car (A 70 Cadillac Sedan DeVille) and spend the weekend! Talk about trusting. When we pulled into Lusk to fill up we realized we had spent all our money. The owner gave us his address and Debra's mother sent him a check the next day. I can't image that happening now.

It was time for lunch so I stopped at the cafe on the south side of town. I was the only one in the dining room and the waitress seemed just as stressed as if there had been 30 diners. A fundamentalist Christian cook with a shirt that read "Jesus is the Answer" came out of the kitchen and looked over a pretty high school girl's application. "What you thinkin' you want to do?" said the cook. "Probly waitress but aneh-thing will be fine...but I'd like to waitress."

The stressed waitress brought my food and I examined the tattoos on her upper arms displaying vines interspersed with rosebuds. As she placed my club sandwich in front of me she smiled and walked away quickly. She then started up where she had left off talking about her one day road trip from Lusk to Guernsey to Wheatland and Douglas and back. She had taken lots of photos. I could see this girl moving to Denver in a year or two and hanging out with some artsy crowd. By the time I left at least 10 people had suddenly appeared and the poor tattoo'd server was needing Xanax.

Driving through eastern Wyoming gives you plenty of time to think and let your mind wander. The cinemascope panoramas are meditative. The sky is immense and one feels pretty humbled. Mostly you see ranch exits and tumble weeds bouncing across the highway as you roar 80 miles between towns. It's a good place to have an audio version of an Oprah Book Club selection or memorize your lines for a Dostoyevsky play. There were many times when I was younger and drove this stretch completely tranced out. I would pull into some place like Lingle and not remember any of the last 40 miles. Today was different. I was acutely aware of the shards of light as they arbitrarily lit the tops of pine splattered mesas and terraced tables. The landscape had a bright whiteness to it backed by turbulent gun metal skies. Castle rock spires perched up to catch rays while their craggy slopes lay shadowless and gray.

As I passed through high plains farmlands between Torrington and Cheyenne the wind was approaching hurricane strength. My newly acquired Buick Century was getting pushed around a bit as the gusts bucked my gait. Wyoming is synonymous with wind. Rarely have I gotten out of my car anywhere in the state and not had my door almost ripped off its hinges. If your hat isn't pulled down it will end up in Laramie by sundown. The power of the air being pushed around in this part of the country could light up the state of Texas and possibly Mexico. Why Wyoming concentrates only on coal instead of wind is beyond me.

I made a quick stop in the state capital of Cheyenne and sped on towards Denver. It was late afternoon and the Rocky Mountains were a lush blue silhouette to my west. Driving south on I-25 I passed through extraordinary development in the Fort Collins area. What had been farm and ranch land was now inundated with cracker box housing and acres of shopping centers. Some of the new housing had yards that were literally feet from the freeway. The homes were practically an arm's length apart and the development was crushing. I became very melancholy when I saw the overbuilt ridiculousness in the Black Hills foothills but this was taken to a whole new level. America has lost millions of agricultural land in the last 50 years. The front range of Colorado has been slowly eaten alive in that process. Open fields along this corridor have become a rarity.  It was almost shocking after driving through the vastness of Wyoming.

Around 6 or so I caught my first glimpse of the Denver skyline. It had noticeably grown since my last visit 8 years earlier.  A spitting mix of rain and snow pelted my car as I angled onto the I-70 on-ramp. This part of the city (Commerce City) had not changed in decades. Refineries, cinder block warehouses and industrial abstract expressionism engulfed me as I flew east towards Aurora. The interstate was bumpy and cracked. I guess the stimulus money had not reached this stretch. I veered off onto Colorado Boulevard and passed old motels and rag tag convenience stores. Eventually I got into the Denver I remembered that lay east of downtown. Passing over Colfax I saw the old Jewish hospital and looked for 'The House of Pies' which had been converted into a Mexican chain restaurant. Neighborhood street signs started to look familiar. I pulled off Colorado and into the Hilltop neighborhood. Suddenly I was amidst large Tudor homes and handsome lawns with tall spruce. I passed a beautiful park with joggers and dog walkers. Roger's home came into view. He described it as a post-modern structure built in 1941 designed by the architect who put up the old Rocky Mountain News building in downtown Denver. It is a prominent sight that sits handsomely on a corner lot.

I parked in back and he buzzed me in. His extremely friendly Standard Poodle Billie jumped all over me with excitement. We sat in his modern kitchen and I told him of my Wyoming travels. Through the long bank of tall windows we watched the snow whip a bit outside. Later I was shown to my room. I entered it after ascending a Joan Crawford staircase of streamlined design. The place was beautiful and I felt like I was staying in Beverly Hills during the early days of WWII. It is one of the few homes I have ever been in with a true sunken living room. Elegant understatement appeals to me and had I my smoking jacket this would have been the room to wear it.

The next day Roger took me all over downtown and lower downtown to show me Denver's changes. Some of the makeover was truly astounding. The central core of Denver had transformed. Historic preservation complimented new architectural wonders. The city was finally "cool." I had often consterned about this city's potential when I lived here in the 70s and 80s. The potential was so potent in my head. Over a ten year period I watched most developers go the wrong way and tear down incredible 19th and early 20th century structures and in their place construct awful inferior glass nothings. I knew the railyard area could be transformed into an urban living space with mixed use. A lot of great stuff was lost and it ripped at my soul. It was not hard to leave in 1985 because I had finally had my fill. I thought the city would never get 'it" and would become increasingly mediocre and hollowed. Luckily I was wrong. Much of the city's great old edifices were sacrificed in the center of downtown but farther west in the warehouse district, the annihilation ended. Not only was it saved but revived with a vitality of life few would have envisioned. The best part is that it didn't stop there and continued across I-95 to the Highland area and beyond. Light rail stations were mixed in. Denver finally saw its unique qualities and saved a lot of itself at the 11th hour. The heart of the place can now compare itself to places like Portland, Oregon. It continues to evolve in this pattern. I would now return even though I am no longer a fan of the cold.

Late in the afternoon Roger and I met with Ann. She had been my sister's partner for years and Roger's travel agency had booked many of her world trips. Ann had been all over the globe from Mongolia to the Serengeti. She had recently returned from Nicaragua where she had gone with some people to teach English in small villages. Her dress implied that she could leave after our chat and go climb a mountain in Denali National Park.

That night Rog and I ate at a great Mexican restaurant called El Diablo. It sat across the street from the restored Mayan Theatre that I helped save back in the mid 80s. After eating we drove down Broadway until we located this funny gay bar that neither of us had been to for at least 20 years. It's called BJ's Carousel. We walked into a room packed with people cheering some of the worst drag queens ever recorded in modern human history. Onstage was a competition of some kind so we sat down to watch. The crowd was equally bizarre. It was a combination of a Fellini movie, the HBO show Carnival and Priscilla Queen of the desert meets Eraserhead. I have been to a lot of gay bars and drag shows in my day but this ranks in some very special category. Margaret Mead would have been very happy to take notes here. I had a camera on me but was fearful of taking it out. It just seemed like we had entered into some kind of sacred rite that should only be handed down by tongue, generation by generation.

Most of the drags were older and when I say old I mean prior to Hitler invading Poland. One of them looked like she had just had a hip replacement but it hadn't taken. She leaned at an odd angle with the shape of a motorcycle tire wrapped around her mid section. Maybe she had meant to have liposuction but opted out for whatever procedure she was offered. The pancake on her face was thick enough to spackle a remodeling project in your basement den. She was about 89,  honey blonde and trying desperately to not be distracted by her sticking false eye lashes as she sang Cher's "Half Breed." A younger performer (about 60)  jumped onstage singing Juice Newton's "Queen of Hearts." She weighed about 57 pounds and had some kind of protruding groin bone that figured quite prominently through a red spandex jumpsuit (that sported peek-a-boo holes.) Her eyes were too close together and it was hard to look at her because one of them shot off toward Pike's Peak. She was agile and ran all over the room. Roger and I had to busy ourselves and pretend we were texting when she danced into our quadrant. Her lip synching was exquisitely awful and she had no problem doing it right up in people's faces.

The MC duties were shared by the drags and overseen by a thin and tiny weathered leatherman who must have gotten his uniform at Baby Leather Gap.  His ginger head of hair was sprayed tightly to his head and his nipple rings sparkled in the colored spots that periodically spilled over him. He was very adept at explaining the night's line up while walking in teeny black cowboy boots.

We finally agreed that the people sitting closest to us had either just performed in a local production of Cabaret and had not bothered to get out of costume or maybe this WAS their own hybrid version we had unknowingly walked into. No one resembled Liza so we gave up on that theory. After being alternately scared, delighted, stunned and confused we jumped up and walked briskly to the door. Patrons frowned at us as we passed because we obviously were not supportive of good talent. When we got into Roger's car it was apparent our body's chemistry levels had been altered and we might never be the same.

The next morning I had a bit of breakfast with Roger and Billie (still reeling from the drag show extravaganza) and then motored a short distance to my old friend Leslie's place. She and I had known each other since our freshman year in college. I was a bit wary given the poor thing had been going through some pretty rough domestic stuff the last few years. Hard times had fallen upon her and life as a talented writer had not gone well. Luckily her husband was at work so the visit wouldn't have an even weirder dynamic.

I could see a bit of what life had been dealing her when she answered the door. She burst into tears as her adorable Schnauzer-mix Woody jumped and barked at me. It had been a long time since Leslie had seen an old friend and feeling the warm hug of me just overwhelmed her. She made us coffee and showed me her extensive doll collection that she was selling off piecemeal. Some were Barbies that had never been taken out of their boxes from the 50s and early 60s. Next came a Limoge porcelain vase that she wanted me to inspect for its authenticity. A stamp on the bottom confirmed and she was thrilled as she had talked to a collector who was interested. There were other treasures like Royal Haeger, Roseville and McCoy vases that she had placed around the house. It was so sad that she was having to sell such beautiful pieces just to make ends meet.

We walked her garden and she compulsively pointed out every plant and flower that was sprouting or had been planted over the years. Conversations with Leslie are like walking a labyrinth of digressing pathways. You never know where you might end up but somehow you find your way home. We laughed when her old funny side came to life and became quite sober when she cursed her current unhappy marriage. It was sad to see such a gifted soul live with such uncertainty but sweet to have a few hours together because we rarely had the chance. She insisted on showing me some restored 1930s streamline homes in the neighborhood before I left. They were worth the photographs and I dropped her back at her place. I hoped her happiness would return one day as she and Woody stood in the doorway and waved goodbye. I punched in my Kansas destination site on my GPS and made my way east out of Denver. The day was sullen and dark. It had been hard to leave Leslie and I was now 2 hours behind schedule and my goal was to make Dodge City, Kansas that night. I slurped down a 5 hour energy drink mixed with Coke Zero and set my sights toward the brown Colorado plain.  The Mile High City eventually evaporated behind me as I settled in for a very long day of incredibly austere scenery. Lonely strips of pavement with sagebrush dotted knolls would be my visuals for what seemed an eternity.

I am road hard (My spring road trip / Part 1)

I just returned from a road trip that took me from South Florida to South Dakota and back. My reason for traveling was to swap cars with my mother. She no longer drives and her Buick Century is more appropriate for my business than was my Toyota Corolla.  The Toyota is still in good shape and will suffice for my sisters or brother to drive her to appointments and doctors visits. The following gives you impressions about my journey that took me approximately one week and 2,500 miles one way. It was a somewhat tiring experience but well worth the escalating gas prices I endured.

Seeing a good chunk of this country via two lane highways, truck stops and anti-abortion signage overkill can be highly entertaining. I listened to a lot of local radio. FM and AM was an audio plastering of right wing misinformation and fundamentalist Christian blather. When I stopped at local cafes or truck travel centers, FOX News beamed brightly on suspended Platforms for all to mindlessly gaze. I heard only one progressive FM station and that was in Chicago. A Little Rock station had a surprizing edition of "Democracy Now." That was it! Fortunately I could pick up NPR in most areas so I didn't feel a total sense of alienation. Vast regions of this country are saturated by over-zealous propaganda spouted by Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Beck and other lesser known asshole Righties.  It is no wonder this Tea Party crowd has their dander up. They collectively get their news in a bubble and the bubble is gigantic and stupid.

My route took me through a good chunk of the deep and middle south and then through the midwest and eastern edges of the west. I stayed with old friends I had not hung out with in years. Each of their accommodations were unique and comfortable...a guest house in Gallatin, Tennesee, a mid-century gem in Chicago, a post-modern beauty in Denver and a Victorian delight in Little Rock. Loving architecture, I couldn't believe my luck. It was like a tour of American vernacular where I was assured a bed and more than breakfast. People I loved owned these places and I could roam them at will.

I left on April 16 from our place in Ft. Lauderdale in 78 degree sunshine. My first day took me as far as the Atlanta area (Locust Grove.) It already looked like summer. I ate at a truck stop near my motel. It offered two trucker chapels. You never know when your patty melt might be contaminated and asking God for help against e coli might have been doubly necessary. Day two took me to Tennessee. I passed  multitudes of blooming white Dogwood as I curved around mountain roads. When I got to Gallatin my friends Trent and Serena put me up in their guest cottage. It even had a pool but it was too cool outside for a dip. I am not the kind to really use a pool anyway. Being overly caucasian I often have to check local zoning to see if my reflection might violate some kind of ordinance. I saw Conway Twitty's former Twitty City (Now occupied by evangelical studios and shops.) This part of the country is unofficially a theocratic state.  My friends discussed their difficulty with living in a southern Christian based economy that seemingly permeates everything. They have learned to abide the loss of open minded thinking and pine for the old days when they could easily find solidarity in southern California. You don't casually mention you are pro-choice or friendly towards gay marriage in these parts. I certainly wasn't going to wear my South Park t-shirt.

I spent the next morning with Trent. He saw me off and when I entered Kentucky my first encounter was with a drive-in theatre a mile or two over the state line. It was immaculate and still in use. Across the highway was a big serious Indian welcoming me to the Dixie Trading Post. (He was wooden and carved badly.) Continuing through Indiana I made several quick visits at rest stops to use facilities. It was one of those caffeine days that messed with my urinary functions... I got into Chicago late and was welcomed by my good friend Teri who made me feel right at home by offering me left-over Chicago pizza. We quickly got caught up and then she filled me in on the harsh realities of being in stage 4 cancer. Sciatica in her lower back had been adding insult to injury. In spite of her off and on pain we laughed a lot and had some deeply affecting talks. The day before I left she got good news that her latest round of oral chemo had been working. We went out for a drink. She had a Cosmo and I had a Diet Coke. When I left the next day it made it easier knowing she was feeling a bit of optimism.

After the north shore Chicago suburbs my route took me west to Galena, Illinois where I spent an enjoyable few hours photographing Federal, Gothic, Queen Anne and Victorian wonders of all kinds. The historic town was a gorgeous piece of Americana. I walked on General Grant's lawn and strode into the DeSoto House Hotel where Lincoln and Douglas had spoken to crowds. Grand old homes lined the terraced streets. The town had been a hub for steamship travel between St. Louis and St. Paul and known for its galena mines. When the ore ran out and the Galena River became unnavigable for steam ships, its prominence slipped away. Close by was Dubuque. It too had seen better days as a river and manufacturing town. Vestiges of is former success were sprinkled around and I got some amazing pictures of a few high Victorian homes.

Motoring on I moved into Iowa's farmlands just as the sun was lowering. My GPS insisted on taking me on a narrow two lane highway that ran parallel to I-90 only 40 miles above in Minnesota. I stuck it out as I passed dozens of grain towers, gigantic farm houses, "Kum & Go" convenience stores and endless implement dealers. Just about the time I was entering Spencer I got a call from Raphael in Fort Lauderdale. We exchanged our daily experiences: His Saks Fifth Avenue customer nightmares and my up close and personal viewing of convenience store clerks with amazingly bad teeth. I assured him I was safe and not tired and would call him when I crossed into South Dakota. About an hour and a half later I did cross into the Buffalo State (former Sunshine State and Coyote State as well. They keep changing it. In fact, it may be the Mt. Rushmore State now. I can't keep up...) and whisked myself through Sioux Falls. I called him as I stopped at the first motel I came to. The night clerk was so friendly that I practically had to peel her off me as she spoke about everything from her cleaning techniques to the free breakfast I would receive. South Dakota has this certain kind of almost aggressive friendliness that is possibly unique. Even Southern hospitality doesn't wear you down like this kind of "Hello pardner! How you doin'? Want to know everything about you and here is the weather forecast and look what happened when I took my grandmother to Walmart...!" type of talking. I finally got away and piled into my cozy, warm room. When I awoke it was a foggy, dreary day. I ate my free continental breakfast. FOX News blabbered lies at me while I slurped my cereal in the breakfast room.

This was the day I had been looking forward to. Once before in the late 80s I had driven some state highways in South Dakota. I loved the small towns and subtle beauty of its open space. I pulled off I-90 and drove north to US Highway 34 as I took myself west. Farms and lowlands were flooded with water and in some areas it came right up to the bottoms of bridges. Waterfowl was teeming and ducks and geese were delighted with their good fortune. Small towns that had once been prosperous farming communities now stood shabbily breathing on life support. There was often one bar, convenience store or maybe a community hall still in use. A few had surprisingly well kept late nineteenth century homes or maybe a manicured park. A few hamlets still had their preserved WPA era county courthouses. Interstates had killed these burgs long ago and their glory days were a thing of the past.

Woonsocket, South Dakota (the home of George McGovern's wife, Eleanor) boasted that it was "The town with the beautiful lake." It said so right along side the Pepsi sign on the abandoned Masonic Temple building. It was true. The town did have a nice lake and you could tell that every ounce of pride that was left went into maintaining its shores and surrounding walkways. A huge tidy brick basilica sat across from it. It was obvious that one either put their extra bucks into the lake or supported the Catholics. For a town of less than 700, they did their best to keep up appearances.

Driving on I ran into intensely thick fog near Wessington Springs. It was like a wall. I could barely see the town's outline as I pulled into its business district.  About 10 miles west I suddenly emerged from the murkiness and onto the open rolling prairie. The sun popped in and out and the lighting was beautiful as it spotlit the undulating plains. Suddenly, I could see for miles. At one point I pulled over and took pictures of broad panoramas. Far vistas of grass blowing in the South Dakota sun was marvelous. The wind started getting intense. It was more like a gale force. Gusts must have been in excess of 50 to 60 miles per hour. I was amazed my Corolla did as well as it did. Some curious Angus cattle came up and inspected me as I perused the countryside for shots. They felt familiar. They were the breed my father had raised.

My next destination was Pierre and it was still many miles away. At one point my cell phone rang to tell me I had a voicemail. Cell service across South Dakota was patchy at best. When I listened I found that my sister Susan had called to tell me that I should probably make a bee line for Spearfish. A winter storm was approaching. I decided I would stop in Pierre, snap a few pics, grab a bite and then bolt toward the Black Hills as fast as possible. As blustery as it was with the wind coming out of the west, it made sense that some kind of weather change was on its way.

I stopped in a tiny place called Stephen on the Crow Creek Indian Reservation. A handsome cowboy was pumping gas and trying not to notice that I had Florida plates. A young Native American guy did the same opposite the cowboy. The woman behind the cash register was as rugged and weathered as the landscape surrounding the station. The farmers at the coffee counter were shy and nodded at me with just a hint of smiles. This was not a place you would ever get a latte' or discuss the latest Almodovar film. Life was harsh and unyielding. So, when I entered Pierre it felt like a relief in some ways because there was hustle and bustle and the familiarity of fast food and the local Verizon store. But in spite of its energy and spirit, it was also depressing to think that this was the state capital. It was a bit rough and tumble. Sure, the capital grounds were manicured but the usual detritus of corporate America surrounded it like a ring of dirty foam in a bathtub. Muddy pickups and enormous SUVs commanded the streets. The old downtown was dying and the newer strip was full of convenience and junk food. A once majestic hotel looked pitifully abandoned even though I think it still operated. It might have been the fact that the beauty of spring had not yet arrived. Everything was still brown and cold. I should have hit this town in summer. Had time allowed, there would have been some discoveries in the residential neighborhoods. Pierre is very historic and traces its roots back to French fur trappers in the early 19th century. Its river breaks setting can be beautiful. This was not one of those days. It looked hopelessly provincial, monochromatic and not what I wanted for my home state capital. I also had come into this town with an attitude. The new governor and rabid right wing Republican legislature was one of the most neanderthal in the country. It gave me the creeps to think what laws were being debated or passed as I lingered outside the state house. I wanted to stop into the governor's office and ask him if he would make an exception about having to make me wait for an abortion. Luckily,  a blizzard awaited me and I had to book out of there via a quick stop at Hardee's.

The town of Philip came just in time because my bladder was full and one of its gas stations fit the ticket. When I walked (ran) inside a group of farmers were all sitting in a circle in the back laughing and talking in their overalls. They all stopped and kind of stared at me. One of them murmured something and then they all laughed. This is not uncommon in South Dakota. It is a throwback to the old general store days when locals would hang out around the woodstove and gab. After a very satisfying pee I asked how far to Wall and a very pretty high school girl gave me perky directions. I jumped in the Toyota and sped off. As I drove away I thought of Scotty Philip who had rounded up some of the last remaining buffalo and kept them alive. From his herd a slow replenishment of bison built from extinction. Any vestiges of that herd were gone around Philip. All that was present were countdown signs to Wall Drug. ( One sign had a coiled snake proclaiming: "Don't Misssssssssssss Wall Drug."

In a little over an hour I passed through the ghost town of Cottonwood and then came to Wall. There was no time to stop and see the mechanical cowboy band at the drug store or sit on the giant Jack-a-lope. It was onto Rapid City. I was now on I-90 and would make good time. About 25 to 30 miles east of Rapid City I caught my first glimpse of the Black Hills. They looked mysterious and shiny on the horizon. Dramatic clouds and reflections were swirling over them. It was snow flurries I assumed. The wind continued to howl and late afternoon sun reflected brightly on the pavement.

Approaching Rapid City was bittersweet as always. The outskirts of the town are a modern slum of old trailer parks and cheap subdivisions. Development is hodge-podge and the zoning for residential and commercial is a confusing mess. The setting was so beautiful and it will be forever mired. You know you are finally almost home but the disgust of poor land use makes you want to vomit. I tried to focus on the forested mountains in the distance and concentrate on their beauty.

Around 30 miles from Spearfish I began to hit snow. I knew that if I did run into any, this would be the place. It is a spot called Tilford which used to be a railroad stop in the early 20th century. You come up out of Piedmont Valley and go over a mild pass. It is just high enough that in the winter you get blowing snow conditions and in the summer you can enter wild thunderstorms or hail. People call it the Bermuda Triangle of the Black Hills. It is just uncanny how many times people hit bad weather there when everywhere else it might be fine.

The snow wasn't blinding but it was wet and coming down in a sloppy mess. The farther west I got the more it began to stick. My sister was correct to call me and warn me. By the time I stopped in Sturgis to put in gas, it was a cold winter day. I shivered as I pumped in my last tank's worth. It must have been around 30 degrees with a windchill of about 12. Spearfish was only about 20 miles away at this point.  When I pulled into my mother's driveway, my hood and grill were completely covered in snow and slush. The yards were getting white. The sky was grey and low. My once shiny car was now filthy from semi trucks that had splashed me mercilessly. I pulled my computer bag from the backseat and yanked down on my baseball cap. The biting wind hit me like little daggers as I rushed from the car to the door.

Inside sat Lola, my 92 year old mother, watching TV. I could tell she had just gotten her red hair styled and it was all poofed out. Her body had shrunk even more since last Thanksgiving and looked tiny and frail.  She turned with her oxygen tubes cascading down her bright green sweater. and smiled as her face brightened. I told her not to get up as I hugged her very carefully so as not to press her sore shoulder that continually aggravates her. Her low gravely voice peppered me with questions about the wintry driving conditions. I poured a cup of coffee and sat down across from her. Old tired eyes inspected me eagerly. I was finally home.