Good gods almighty… I just got in from an 18-hour drive from Durango, CO to DFW. I drove through EVERYTHING.

This morning I had to leave west out of Pagosa Springs on 160 to Durango and then angle down, because everything east out of Pagosa was closed. I didn’t mind, the drive was absolutely beautiful.

Until I got back towards NM:

Cuba, NM to Bernalilo, NM, and down towards Albuquerque - gray-out blizzard at dinnertime.

I was trying to reach I-40 through Albuquerque to get east as fast as possible, but somebody wrecked just east of Sandia and tied up traffic for ten miles in every direction, so I went NORTH on 25 to gas up in Santa Fe and find another way down to 40…

25 from Albuquerque to Santa Fe - fresh-fallen snow right at 4 PM, Santa Fe was completely slicked over including all the ramps and there were cars and trucks skidding and sliding at literally every intersection. Just popping in to get gas was a ticket to a demolition derby. Lots of joints dropped on the flooboards trying to save from spinouts.

Santa Fe to Cline’s Corners on 285 - 40 miles of white-out, southbound lane was completely covered in 2” of fresh-blown snow and I pretty much surfed my car at a steady 40 mph to keep from bogging down.

Clines Corners to Santa Rosa/Tucumcari - For about five miles I thought I had outrun the storm, but I was wrong about its direction, and right at sunset I ran into the edge of it. It was absolutely mortifying, like the fucking end of the world. Twilight had descended and gray clouds of snow were slamming down across I-40 and it was like some kind of alien planet.

Then came 60+ miles of honest to goodness Little House On The Prairie nightmare blizzard. Blacked-out, sideways snow pelting the car and curling across the road with me holding about 1” of left steering to keep on the road, it looked like videotape of Antarctica. Just incredible.

Finally broke out ahead of it just shy of Amarillo, but the winds in Amarillo at 9 PM were hurricane-force. I stopped at the Shell station at the east end of town and up on the hillside I thought the wind was about to tear the station down on my head.

Amarillo to Childress on 287 was a smorgasbord of slamming into tumbleweeds nearly as big as my car, sideways rain mixed with ice pellets, hurricane winds, and temperatures below 27 degrees the whole way.

Childress to Wichita Falls - blinding rain, wind, more tumbleweeds, still cold.

Wichita Falls to DFW - rain, wind, more rain, lightning, rain, more wind.

I have never seen anything like that in my life. It’s like somebody cut a piece of the arctic off and dropped it into West Texas. Absolutely mind-boggling stuff, and I got trough it in a little Japanese wagon with Michelin all-season tires, no skids, no big slides, no bumps, no crashes, nothing.

I would like to thank Mazda and Michelin for making amazing things. If anybody has relatives out there in West Texas, tell them to stay put, for pete’s sakes… It’s insane out there.