Flagstaff had several inches of fresh powder Friday. By Saturday night, the skiers and snowboarders descended on this town in droves. You can't get a hotel room. The restaurants are full. Streets are crowded. Prosperous looking town and definitely doesn't look like it's in a recession. Flagstaff is what I expected it to be... seven thousand foot elevation, tall evergreens, very attractive town but I wasn't in it two hours before I wanted out. Too late in the day to leave. Maybe it's the snow. Maybe it's just a regular Saturday night. There are large crowds of teenagers and young twenties.. hollering, burning rubber, being generally obnoxious on the streets but I don't fancy finding my way down the mountain top in the dark. I'll catch up on the postings and be on the road at first light. I'm taking I-40 (The Purple Heart Trail again) to avoid going through Phoenix. I figure a good eight hours on the road to reach Ventura. Why Ventura for the second time when I haven't seen some of the possible destinations once? Five years ago I spent a magical week in a rented house on Faria Beach in Ventura. My three daughters and their boyfriends and family friends were there. We had a great time doing nothing... It was so good just to talk and cook and sun and play cards, that we never even went out to dinner. We only went into town to buy groceries at Lassen's, a great natural foods store. There was a fireplace that roared for the week, day and night. We left the French doors open and the breeze sailed through. A hot tub. A sauna. A view of the Pacific that I can't forget... seals playing below the retainer wall. It was paradise. On the last day, Lucia and I went for a walk together on the beach, picking up rocks and soaking up every last bit of one another's company. We weren't sure how long it might be before we were together again. That beach was a first for me too. In the East, beaches are made of sand, only sand, and sea oats and dunes. On that California beach, when the tide went out, all the rocks on the beach clattered against one another. I had never heard anything like that. It made a sort of music and I would want hear that music again. So, Sunday morning in Flagstaff. I didn't wake until 7 and when I looked outside I couldn't believe my eyes... it wasn't just snowing...it was snowing like a banshee! I remembered the signs along the road yesterday: "Zero Visibility Possible". Getting two cups of coffee, I got a little advice too. "If you're leaving, leave NOW! This is going to get a lot worse quickly!" "You must love it...more customers coming to play in the snow!" "Oh yeah! We've have SEVEN FEET since the season began." "When did the season begin?" "December." "How far down do I have to go to be below the snow line?" "Not far, about 30 miles. But leave now or you won't get out." I left. The photo you see let's me show you the snow that had accumulated in 30 minutes, but it was so fine and blowing so hard you can't see it coming down... and was it ever coming down! I passed the first rest stop below Flagstaff and the west and east lots were both full of truckers. Not a good sign. I hoped they were all neophytes and found that, in fact, the road was still full of big rigs. All you had to do was stay in their tracks. That required a concentration and both hands gripping the wheel at all times.. luckily that's a habit of mine 'cause it wasn't easy.. but, boy, was it beautiful. At the same time, scratch Flagstaff from a list of wanna-live-there's. Just as predicted, the snow line was Williams, about 25 miles down. Whew! No more snow, but a gale force wind that would not subside until I reached the outskirts of Los Angeles. Stopping for gas in the Mojave Desert area, the clerk laughed at me leaning hard into the wind just to keep from being blown off my feet. "Pretty good wind today, huh?", she said cheerily. "This is nothin'! " "This is nothin'!!? How do you drive in this?" "I don't...I make my husband drive me!"
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