Return

I see in the news today that the storm was a pretty bad one in the Midwest. All weekend I have been hearing from friends and relatives back in Minnesota that the storm was bad. This morning I read in the news that the Metrodome had collapsed. I guess that means my leaving on Friday was a good thing.

Granted, I really had little input into the choice of departure, I was flying on free tickets, but this makes me feel a bit better about the way things worked out. Though on Friday morning I had wondered if I had waited too long!

The plan was to leave for the airport around 08:30 or 09:00. The morning dawned bright and clear and the prediction was for snow to start around noon. So, when I looked out the window at a heavy snowfall at a quarter-to-nine, I feared I had left the departure too long.

I finished my coffee, bid a good day to my parents, and beat a hasty retreat. Minnesota State Highway 27 was a mess! The conditions were not quite white-out, but they were bad! Snow was drifting across the road so that the lane markings were hard to see, the only saving grace was that there was nobody else on the road.

By the time I had gotten onto Interstate 94 (about ten-miles east of the Bergquist home) the conditions had improved greatly! The skies had cleared to the point that the sun shone down on a lovely, dry roadbed. The snow reduced to flurries, and then stopped altogether.

As a matter of fact, except for an inexplicable stoppage about Rogers, Minnesota, the drive was a quite pleasant one! Even that was no biggie, the GPS warned me of the problem with sufficient time to get off the interstate and head around the blockage.

The start of the storm didn't reach The Cities by the time we took off, the white on the ground as we took off was the result of a week of daily flurries after the previous weekend's storms. But this truly was the calm before the storm. I now know that the flight crew had reason to worry.

While waiting to board, the flight attendants were sitting near me in the boarding area discussing the impending storm. One worried that they may be late on the return flight and wondered if they would have to stay at the hotel by the airport. due to weather conditions that evening.

But I returned to a lovely weekend here in Denver. I got to stare out the window at lovely days as I worked to get my PC back to its optimal working condition. Okay, I didn't spend the entire weekend working on my PC. I actually did get out for a few walks in the park. All-in-all, for me it was a lovely weekend!

Wherever you are today, I hope that your weekend was a good one!

Don Bergquist - December 13, 2010 - Lakewood, Colorado, USA