OMG, it snowed!

I got up this morning to find something like 3 inches of snow on the ground and trees. It was still snowing and we were clouded in. It had snow-showered yesterday off and on all morning, but nothing stuck and there was a gorgeous red sunset last night. The expression is: “red sky at morning, sailors take warning; red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” So I did – take delight, that is. Figured that was it for winter weather. But the snow sharks weren’t done with us. However, we should be about 1/3 through with our snow for the winter for a place that gets an average of 10 inches a year! It was beautiful, though, since I could look at it out my office window and didn’t have to navigate I 270 to get to downtown DC to work. Btw, as of sunset (another red sky), the roads were clear, at 200 feet lower in elevation than this house sits, there’s no sign of snow, and we have a mix of white and puddles here.

This is a tough week for us. Nick has gone back to Brooklyn because his Uncle Jerry is moving into his final life stage. So Nick went last Saturday and will return Monday 12/15. I couldn’t go because of the dog, work and the cost, in that order. I am blue and lonely, since I have come to love U Jerry as my own uncle – he’s a central part of my NY family.

At the same time, Nick’s departure leads me to a fun small-town story. There is a commercial airport serving Grant County, of which Silver City is the county seat; it’s appropriately called Grant Co Airport. There is one airline that serves Grant Co Airport – Great Lakes Airline. You can fly Great Lakes Airline from Silver City to Albuquerque and from Albuquerque to Silver City – nowhere else! There wouldn’t be a Grant Co Airport OR any airline connection if there wasn’t some kind of federal regulation having to do with air service to regions or something. Anyway, so we found that he could fly from Silver City to Albuquerque and connect with an American flight to NY and return cheaper than he could go to Tucson or El Paso and fly Southwest. So we booked it. Then Nicky went onto Google Maps to get a map to Grant Co Airport. Don’t evereverevereverever rely on Google maps when it’s really important, to whit:

There are only two main roads into/out of Silver City – (state) Rt 90 and Rt 180. There is Rt 15 but that goes up through Pinos Altos and into the Gila National Forest, so it doesn’t count for this tale. Google told us to go down Rt 90 about 11 miles to Phelps Dodge Rd and then… so we followed Google. I started to get nervous at mile 15 when we had not found Phelps Dodge Rd, and we started making phone calls at mile 20. We tried Grant Co Airport, but got connected to the weather(!) We tried Grant Co Airport again, and got a recording. We tried our friend Steph, who didn’t answer. I tried her mom, who also lives here. Then I even tried her brother, who also lives here. No luck, no answer. By this time, we’d turned around and were headed back to Silver City. Got the bright idea to try to call the airline itself (Great Lakes Airline) counter at the airport. Now, remember, we’ve never seen this airport, but we’re assuming it’s small as befits a town of 12,000/county of 30,000. Try calling an airline’s ticket counter at National. We got right through! Talked with a very nice lady who was telling us how to come back toward Silver City, turn right onto Ridge Rd and come across the open range land, but it’s faster…then we got cut off…signal interrupted by terrain. We got around the hills and within signal range of Silver City, and just as I was about to call again, Nick’s phone rang. It was the desk agent at the airport calling him! We had, of course, put his cell phone as one contact number when we made the reservations. So she finished giving us directions, and the real adventure began.

Ridge Rd is a county-maintained gravel road that crosses 10+ miles of open range land. County-maintained means that the county fills the major holes and paves/clears the ‘washes’ where the formal road was washed out but there is a paved creek crossing. It is, however, wash-board in large sections. Have you ever taken a Volvo at 35 or 40 miles an hour over washboard gravel roads! DON’T unless your black-ice driving skills are up-to-par. Because going that fast on wash-board surface is like driving on slick ice. I faced facts and slowed down to 20. So we were both breathing deeeeep breaths trying not to panic about Nick missing his flight. At about 5 miles (and 15 minutes into the crossing) his cell phone rang again, and it was, again, the desk agent at the airport. “How’re you doing? You’re on Ridge, right? Doing ok?” Yes, we told her, except we had no idea where we were or how far we had left to go. She said not-to-worry, we’d make it in plenty of time. Sure enough, another 5 or so miles in another 10 or so minutes, and we came to paved road again, and there was the airport on the left, just like she said.

Once we pulled into the airport parking lot, greeted the local road runner (bird) hanging around and got Nicky’s luggage out of the trunk, we got a chance to take in the Grant Co Airport in all its singular glory. Singular little building, singular front door, singular back door to the singular taxi-way and, beyond that, singular runway. And, when we got inside we found the single person who runs BOTH the airport and the Great Lakes Airline ticket counter, check in and baggage claim. And when we expressed relief that we’d made it before the plane, she said, and I am honestly quoting, “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have let them leave you.” Turns out, he was their only departing passenger, although they were bringing home two Silver Citizens. So this one lady checked Nick in, gave him something akin to a yellow sticky as his boarding pass, took his luggage and loaded it onto a golf cart, took the radio call from the incoming pilot, went out and checked the wind sock, came back and relayed the wind direction to the pilot, carried out two bottles of water and the “air mail” (several envelopes) along with the red wands to wave the plane in, waved the plane in, took Nick’s ticket, escorted the two incoming passengers, handed up the water and “air mail” to the pilot through the plane’s window, waved the plane clear and drove the golf cart into the little building with the two passengers’ bags, and handed off their bags. Believe me, I’m not being disrespectful at all when I say – the blessing and character of a small town – would they hold your flight for you at BWI? Or Dulles? I came back to town on Rt 180, which was the way we should have gone in the first place. And it became clear why she brought us over the open range. The airport is 20 miles from Silver City in the opposite direction from which we had driven 20 miles erroneously, based on Google’s directions.

Other things of note – I’m going to see the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra tomorrow night at the university’s Fine Arts center for $15. That’s for the seat, not the parking. The parking is free. In DC, if we had the energy to drive back down to town, or to stay in town after work to see some performance, you wouldn’t park the car for $15. The performance is at 7 pm, and I’ll probably leave here about 6:30. I’ll get there about 6:45 (remember, 15 minutes to anywhere) and get a good seat. We went to a community holiday performance last week that was free in the same venue. Some of the performers were terrific; some were of the grimace, groan, and cringe quality. But the kids’ performances were great fun to watch – it’s always so much fun to watch the kids dance, sing and act. Reminded me of, first, our nephew Dave’s high school performances where many of the kids were very talented and all had fun, and more lately, our neighbor Addie’s performances, ditto.

Finally, these hilly walks are paying off. Both Nutmeg and I are losing weight. She lost between 3 and 4 lbs in the last month; she’ll soon be svelte, not sturdy (sturdy being a euphemism for overweight). I don’t have a scale at home, and refused to get on the scale at the vet’s today, but I am sure my waistband is a little looser.

I’ll close now, and finally. These epistles are getting longer as we get more experiences here. I’ll either have to: a. stop writing these things due to wearing out your reading patience; b. write more often; or c. tell fewer stories more concisely. Vote now! Love to each and I’m thinking about each of you. Sonnie