What a trip.

We woke up Wednesday morning to a bunch of snow on the ground, and heavy snow still falling. The visibility was about 150', making the drive to the Aspen airport for my flight to Denver (and on to San Jose) a bit pointless. As expected, the flight was cancelled and I could wait around for a 1:15 flight to Aspen I might make, or get ground trasportation to Denver, 200 miles away.

I opted for the "get there for sure" approach, and grabbed shotgun on a shuttle going to the Denver airport. Some of the highlights of this were:

• 45 miles of snow packed roads
• 5-6 cars in snowbanks in various places
• A tractor trailer jack knifed in the canyon on the way to Vail, closing I-70 for about two hours. Fortunately, my van included a women who worked for one of the county emergency dispatch offices, and she found out that the road was reopened one lane so we suffered through the 30 minute delay.
• A "mighty burger", or "meaty burger", or something at a gas station combined with a Wendy's wannabe. It does not come highly recommended.
• A driver who forgot his badge for the airport, so we got to wait for someone else to show up and drive us the last 5 miles.

The good parts were beautiful scenery, going through Vail pass at 10,600', and going through the Eisenhower tunnel at 11,100'. It would be a fun drive in better circumstances.

After having the first two bits of my trip messed up by airline incompetance and then rotten weather, my return flight from California got delayed so I'll be driving from Charlotte to Raleigh to get home.

Three flights. Three BAD days. What a trip.