BUMMER-FREE ZONE

So yesterday was the day of our first ultrasound for the newest member of our burgeoning clan. The prospect of getting a first glimpse of the wee lad or lassie was sufficient incentive to risk life and limb to make it down there. A howling blizzard had engulfed our mountain and was dumping snow faster than plow, shovel and wiper blade could remove it.

The trees were stooped and bent over under the weight of the snow as though Jack Frost was forcing them to pay homage to our sturdy little Astro Van as it hustled by with its chains merrily click-clicking it's way down to a better altitude.

We had to stop once to clear frozen matter from the windshield wiper blades. It was a scary proposition to stop anywhere on the winding road for fear that some imprudent traveler would come barreling around the corner and hit us. I waited until the windshield wiper ceased to be any help at all and then I stopped on the longest most unwindy stretch of road I could find to clear it.

It rained the whole time we were in the desert, and it never got above fifty the whole time were down there. Those are rare conditions for the desert in my experience. I would almost have preferred snow.

They couldn't fit us in for an ultrasound after all, which made my Sarah, "kind of angry at them." They said we could come back in the next day or two, but we live in Idyllwild which, at the moment, is no less snowed in than the Ponapy (sp?) place in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We left in low spirits and, after getting some gas, we turned the Astro Van towards home by way of Garner Valley. At the bottom of the hill we found a road block barring any and all from venturing up the mountain. I parked the van and walked up to the CHP officer. Our conversation went like this:

"The road is closed, eh?"

"Yeah."

"Cause of the snow?"

"Yeah."

"I live in Idyllwild. Is there anyway I can get back to Idyllwild."

He thought for a second, and then I said...

"I have chains."

He said, "It's your crash, not mine," and then he let me pass.

We made it home and this morning I woke to temperatures in the teens and heaping mounds of snow everywhere- it looks like we got about a foot and a half yesterday. Poor Keith, must have spent all day yesterday plowing. I went and found him after we got home last night and offered to spell him, but by then the storm was almost over and he was about done for the day. He did a great job though, and the camp was better plowed than most of the country we passed between here and Mountain Center.

There is a car under there. Our snow storms up here are like a brief passionate argument, that, once spent, quickly apologizes and makes up. It's not like the heavy hate-filled silence of Vermont's winter. Vermont's winter is like an unhappy marriage- an exercise in endurance, and Idyllwild's winter is like a clearing of the air- altogether exciting and enjoyable.