Wednesday 01-11-17 to Saturday 01-14-17 Trip Out

Another year, another trip out west. We started on Wednesday Jan.11th leaving the house at 6:30am. It was partly cloudy and 44 degrees. We took the NJ Turnpike to the Penn Turnpike extension into Pa.  Travelling on the Pa Turnpike, road conditions were good with small rush hour backups. As we travelled thru central PA, the temperature dropped into the low 30s but once we exited the roadway,  it rose into low 50s. with cloudy conditions. That was the last time we saw snow on the ground. We ended the day in Columbus, Ohio - 538 miles around 4pm. It was 62 degrees and had started to rain.

Thursday started with temps in the low 60s and a forecast of rain. Travelling on RT70 toward Indianapolis, we encountered HEAVY rain along the way. Once pass Indianapolis, the temp quickly dropped to the mid 40s but also continued to rain. Road conditions remained good, but we started to see alert road signs about the Major ice storm that will be threatening Missouri and Kansas on Friday. We arrived in Columbia Missouri around 4:30pm in time for the Hotels Happy Hour starting at 5:30pm. Today we traveled 530 miles. We are more than 1/2 way on our trip. Still no snow on the ground in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. As we were enjoying the happy hour, the TV continued to warn about this ice storm and said travel is not recommended on Friday. Looking at the path of the storm, we decided that we would leave very early on Friday and get as far west as possible. During the night, temps dropped into the 20s

We started the day at 6am. The forecast for freezing rain to start was around 12 noon. It gave us enough time to get into western Kansas and not have to worry about the freezing rain. Along the way, many maintenance trucks were out on the highways, preparing the roadway with a chemical to help prevent freezing. We usually stay in Hays Kansas but because we started so early, we traveled an extra 100 miles and stayed in Colby Kansas which is only 53 miles from the Colorado border. Still no snow along the way. I have never seen it this dry of snow. As we settled in, the news highlighted MANY accidents on the RT70 that we travelled along. There were several 20 car pileups. Glad we left early. Total mileage today was 500 miles. This leaves us only 290 miles to go.

Saturday we started at 8:30am because we didn't want to be in the ski traffic going up into the mountains early in the morning. As we entered the city limits of Denver, we started to see snow along the roadways. By the Loveland ski area ,which is near the Eisenhower tunnel , you started to see the tremendous amount of snow that has fallen over the past 2 weeks. Six to seven fee of snow has fallen in the last 2 weeks. Gaining an extra hour because of Mountain time, we arrived at our condo about 12:30pm. After lunch, we unpacked the car and made arrangements to get some additional stuff from our friends house. We our now relaxing watching the NFL football games. There may be more mountain snow tomorrow. Since leaving on Wednesday, we haven't seen the sun.