It is never too early to worry about severe weather, bad roads, and scary traffic conditions.
Plus, as the nation’s windiest state, the upcoming season known as winter can be positively magnificent in its ferocity.
This is the time of year when I spend way too much time cautioning my family and friends about the perils of driving in Wyoming during this season of long nights and short days - plus bitter temperatures, heavy snowfalls, and, yes, those doggone Wyoming winds.
Our trips around the Cowboy State had been abbreviated this year but this past week we made a trip to Denver and it was refreshing to get out on the highways.
For the time being, it looks like we are having a nice Fall. But look out as Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day thinks we may be in for a long winter.
As I am writing this, I am looking out at the green grass of our back yard and the mercury is climbing to 82 degrees. There is a slight breeze and the sky is blue and the sun is shining. Smoke is very limited and I can see the Wind River Mountains clearly on the horizon. Winter, frankly, seems far, far away.
This reminds me of the saying that my friend Del McOmie passed along to me “that Wyoming does not have four seasons but rather has 14.” They are:
1. Winter
2. Arctic Freeze
3. Second winter
4. Spring of Deception
5. Semi-Truck tipping season
6. Sprinter
7. Mud season
8. Actual spring (lasts about two days)
9. Construction season
10. Torrential downpour
11. Cheyenne Frontier Days Hail Season
12. Summer
13. Pre-Winter - Fall Snow
- Indian Summer
Thus, according to this tally, we are entering “pre-winter,” and “fall snow.”
This would mean that we will see our landscapes turn white and the mercury dip below freezing. All hope will seem to be lost.
And then October will turn nice and the leaves on the trees will turn into beautiful colors and we will enjoy one of Wyoming’s traditional and famous Indian Summers. It is truly one of my favorite times of year.
Trip To Denver
We make two trips a year to Denver to visit a medical specialist who treats Nancy. Plus, we often visit my brothers who live there.
I was thinking about our experiences during Wyoming winter roads during this most recent trip.
Our family moved to Wyoming just as Interstate 80 was being completed a half century ago. One trip we made was in the winter on pitch-black, brand-new asphalt with no lines on a moonless night. It was like driving off a cliff into a bottomless, endless black pit. Talk about a black hole.
Back in 1970, we did not have 12,000 trucks on that road every 24 hours either, so at night it was more than lonely.
When painted lines were added, they were yellow! This seemed odd to me until you started driving in the winter and white painted lines would disappear under the snow and ice.
The feds did not like Wyoming following its own rules and threatened to withhold federal funds until Wyoming conformed to the national rules, which confounding the practical Wyoming folks.
Snow Chi Minh Trail
John Waggener’s excellent book about Interstate 80 details why the highway was built through the treacherous mountain areas rather than on the flatlands where Highway 30 currently runs. On a good day it can save 15 to 20 minutes. On a bad day it can cost you your life.
The Interstate route is prone to horrible weather causing horrible conditions causing horrible accidents.
The webcams available on your phone and computer plus the message boards along the way have greatly increased the safety of traveling Interstate 80 these days but still you have deal with the weather and the traffic.
On this recent trip even though the winds were gusting to 55 mph and most RVs were banned, we saw dozens of high-profile campers and motorhomes slogging their way down the road.
I have driven a high-profile motorhome for over 45,000 miles in the last ten years and this is the most-scary part of such trips. The wind gusts will just throw you around. We only saw one small trailer off the road scattered in many pieces -- that must have been a thrilling experience for the driver.
First Of All, Be Safe
My kids and my friends know what a nag I am about packing a cooler of drinks and snacks plus a good flashlight, a decent blanket, a good scraper, and perhaps most importantly, a full tank of gas.
Even when the weather is spectacular which it was a couple of Saturdays ago for Wyoming’s first football game, problems occur. That was when so many folks got stranded on Interstate 80 because of a deadly pile-up. They spent the afternoon sitting there in their cars listening to the game on the radio.
Ernie Over wrote an insightful column in the Lander Journal about the experience that he and his brother Jim endured being stranded for hours and hours.
On the other hand, Over’s buddy Cody Beers figured out a way to break out of the traffic blockade and drive over 24 miles of back roads to get to Saratoga. Beers at least made it to Laramie in time to watch the second half.
Ernie ultimately had to turn around and go home to Riverton. He is one of the main statisticians for UW so that must have been painful for him to miss a game, even one as disappointing at that loss.
He admitted that he was not prepared for such a long wait in his car, with the weather being so beautiful. He will be better prepared the next time, he assured me.
