"Trapped by blizzard; re-acquainting with friends, neighbors"

By Lisa Marshall
Friday, December 29, 2006

It had all the makings of an epic powder day.

Some Colorado resorts were reporting between 1 and 3 feet of snow, on top of an already impressive base for this time of year. But the roads were so wicked that the newscasters were pleading with people not to attempt the drive to go skiing.

My brother-in-law and nephew rose at 5 a.m. nonetheless, shoveled through 3.5 feet of snow in their Evergreen driveway and gunned the Suburban through more than a mile of neighborhood streets that the plow drivers hadn't even thought about clearing yet. By 9, they were bombing through the trees at Keystone in fluffy, knee-deep powder, enjoying a remarkably crowd-free powder day we would all hear about at length over Christmas dinner.

I, meanwhile, spent the morning gazing longingly out my window in the mountains west of Lyons, watching the Blizzard of 2006 rage on and wondering how long it would take me to dig out my hopelessly buried front-wheel-drive minivan. My gut ached with envy as I looked at my dry boots and skis sitting idle by the front door.

My hopes of a ski trip before the holidays had been dashed, ironically, by too much snow.

But around noon, the mood shifted. As the sky cleared to a mind-blowing Technicolor blue, my neighbors and I emerged from our houses armed with shovels and spent hours digging ourselves — and each other — out. We gathered in the yet-to-be plowed street, catching up on each other's lives for the first time since the last wicked snowstorm kept us from rushing off to work, or the ski slopes, or the mall. One neighbor asked to borrow an armful of firewood to heat her house, and returned the favor with a bottle of champagne and a plate of cookies. Another — well aware that my husband (who drives a snowplow truck) would be gone for days — shouted across the street to ask if I needed help with anything.

Soon the crowds began converging in our yard — a long, steep hill which has become the stuff of sledding legends. One teenager offered to watch my two kids so I could get some relief from my cabin fever.

I strapped on my Yak Traks (running shoe attachments that make it easier to run on snow) and went bounding off with my dog for a glorious two-hour adventure through the neighborhood and nearby Forest Service land. We stopped at least a half-dozen times along the way, to get re-acquainted with old neighbors, meet new ones, and help one push out a hopelessly stuck car. Even the dog made new friends.

Once I got home, I took my kids up on their dare and spent the afternoon letting my German shepherd pull me at Mach 1 speed down the sledding hill. That night, as we pulled off our soaked snow pants and settled in for some hot chocolate and Christmas movies, I had that same pleasantly exhausted feeling I get after a day of hard skiing — sans the three-hour drive home in traffic. I also had a feeling of re-connection with my neighborhood that I would have missed out on had I attempted the mad dash to the slopes as planned.

Perhaps staying home once in a while isn't so bad after all.