Day 9: Fade to Black

May 30, 2019

If snow is white, I wondered, how can it be so black?...

We started out the day with a drive through- and a few hikes within- Arches National Park, a cool stop just outside of Moab, Utah.  Arches NP is apparently where God spat his bubble gum when he was done with it - a profusion of pink swirly blobs down low and the most amazing spires, balancing rocks, and of course arches up above.  Our first stop in the park was a giant balancing rock which I wryly commented was so aptly named by our governmental park overlords - "Balancing Rock".

It was clear we weren't going to need the heavy artillery today, so we stripped out the thermal liners and switched to the warm weather gloves, also opening all of the vents in the jackets and pants.

We left Moab and headed back to Colorado, hitting even more awesome roads and straightening out on Colorado 90 through what must have inspired the TV show "Big Valley".  I've never seen such a thing.

It was apparent from 50 miles away that we were in for a bit more trouble in the mountains. Even Mordor couldn't have looked more intimidating than the wall of black that was obscuring the range to the east, between us and our destination - Montrose.  As we got nearer I could see the long fingers of snow reaching down to the ground, and it blocked even more of the passes we needed to scale.

To make matters worse, we were held up by construction at the beginning of the ride, and we twisted the wrists to try to get ahead of the storm - somehow finding a route that had most of the snow and lightning above and to both sides, without more than a good face and two fists full of semi-thawed hail to show for it.  And it was a good thing, because we were still wearing the warm weather gloves and didn't have the liners in.

Halfway up the pass a pair of black ducks got spooked and whistled across the road in front of a truck we were following, then decided to turn tail and head back out over the fields.  Inspiring our second poem of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour.

Hickory dickory duck,
two ducks flew in front of a truck,
the truck struck one,
and the other one got away.

The duck careened through the air and fell just to the right of Jack, then sat up in the road, probably with a concussion and a broken wing.  I was too concerned for my own welfare to try to go back for it.  Not much further along the route the lightning show started, and as delicious as duck is, it would just have to stay there.

We came down out of the pass quickly and into Montrose, both looking back at the still impenetrable wall of black, at once disbelieving and relieved we'd made it through with so little drama.

We'll "weather over" in Montrose, and tomorrow will be another adventure.  Until then, dear readers.  Onward and upward!