Christmas in Halifax with my family!

I tried so hard to go to Halifax for Christmas this year. Really I did. But there were reports of a bit of snow moving this way (ha).

It wasn’t even snowing that hard in the morning. There were only a few inches down when I left for the airport at 7:45. The plan was to park at the Table Mesa Park-and-ride and take the AB to DIA. No problem with that except that the parking lot was mostly full, and the only spots to be found were on the non-covered rooftop area. Well, I parked so the sun would have time to melt the snow off the windshield by the time I got back in a week. (Ha!)

The bus was about 40 minutes late. Not a problem, as I had cleverly allowed plenty of time, but it’s indicative of RTD’s general level of snow-preparedness. They have already had serious problems this year (local buses unable to navigate their routes because their tires have little tread and their drivers are unwilling to put on chains), but I foolishly hoped that they would get their act together in the face of this well-known problem. Ha!

We got to the airport in good time (RTD sent us an express). Good enough for me, at least, although not for everyone on the bus. And lines were long. United had cancelled most of its flights, Frontier was cancelling quite a few and had a checkin line that extended to the escalators in the lobby (maybe 300m?), everyone else was shutting down, but my airline, Continental, seemed to be aiming to get all its flights off with minor delays. Ha ha!

The flight boarded on time (10:45) notwithstanding a small but aggressive-looking snowdrift that had insinuated itself through the curtain at the elbow of the walkway. And then we sat. And sat. Turns out that most of DIA’s crews “couldn’t” make it in to work (one might suppose that corporations that actually wanted their employees to be able to come to work around here might arrange wholesale pricing on Hakkapeliittas? Or even to call the Hakka 5 a health benefit?), and even though few flights were going out, the skeleton crew couldn’t handle the load. First we had to wait 2 hours to refuel the plane, then another hour to get the baggage loaded, then another half hour for a runway to get plowed (again). I watched the refueling truck crew working on the plane next to us—in the time taken to refuel, the wind had deposited at least 25cm of fresh powder on the ladder. They could not get the ladder out from underneath the plane’s wing despite 20 minutes of intensive shovelling. Was that a bad sign?

We were told that they needed 18 volunteers to take a different flight to Newark, to lighten the plane. These happy souls would be given $400 Continental travel certificates, but I held out some faint hope that I could still make my connection in Newark, so I declined. Hahahaha!

Finally we started taxiing. That is, the tractor was attached and was trying to rock the plane back and forth to break it out of the snowdrift it had created. I could feel the plane move, slow, rise, and then settle as the tractor got stuck in its own snowdrift and began to skid. Back and forth, back and forth. “Ladies and gentlemen, we were hoping to be the last ones out of the airport, but flight control has just advised us that DIA is closed. We apologise for any inconvenience.”

“As you disembark, please be advised that the small snowdrift you encountered when you boarded is now a large snowdrift. Please use extra caution.” Indeed.

Baggage Drifts

“Please be advised that the Department of Homeland Security has raised the terror alert status to orange. Please report any unattended baggage to airport personnel.”

At the baggage claim, bags were strewn everywhere. Piled as high as the snowdrifts outside, and they kept coming. From where? Who knows. I was tempted to try to build an igloo out of them, but I reasoned that surely some damn smartass would come by to claim my keystone whilst I slept. So I tried reporting the significant terrorist threat posed by the enormous unattended baggagedunes to airport personnel. At least some of them laughed, eventually.

But my bag was still elsewhere. I was advised that it would go out on the next day’s flight and end up wherever it was supposed to go, despite the fact that I had no place on the plane. “Isn’t that illegal?” I had been told before that the 45-minute rule for checked bags was because of a law that you had to be on the same flight as your bags, presumably so as to discourage non-suicide bombers. “Oh no, we x-ray all bags now.” Whaaa? Ok, so the 45-minute rule, or at least its justification, is just another absurd fabrication.

The problem, of course, was that they still couldn’t get bags off the planes, due perhaps to some interactions between the baggage trolleys and the snowdrifts (and maybe the cold, exhausted, wet, overworked, skeletonised crew). I tried to persuade them that it would be a simple matter to let us go and collect our own bags, trolley-free, but “that’s a restricted area.” For anyone still keeping score, award one more point to the terrorists. But when several of us explained that it was just not acceptable to cancel our seats on a plane without cancelling our bags’ seats (“What’s the problem? Of course we could ship the bags back to you. It will take less than two weeks.”), they hemmed and hawed, took baggage claim tags, and after a couple of hours, produced our bags. Somehow. Kudos to those brave souls who risked life and limb to bring us back our property! But seriously, there’s a certain something in having my down parka back, safe and sound.

The Highway of Ghosts

I25: closed. Peña Boulevard: closed. US36: closed. I70: closed. We’re trapped. The staff hands out blankets, cots. It sounds like they’re no less stuck than we are. “My employer found me a hotel room, but the hotel shuttles aren’t running.” People are camped out with laptops, personal DVD players, playstashuns. I wander the airport, hoping to find someone with a guitar, or some good games. Or at least a free electrical outlet. People are insular, avoiding eye contact. But at dinner at the “French” restaurant, some folks next to me persuade those in the vicinity to sing Jingle Bells. I’ve tried so hard to avoid Christmas music lately that I refuse to join, but when they start, I accompany them a little anyway. Thank God it’s not religious… Then I ask if we can do Schubert’s “Herbst”—a painfully beautiful song about wind and cold and the passing of hope. The Jingle Bells instigator promises me “Next year!”

I settle down to sleep next to the fountain. My bedroom at home lacks the sound of running water, so this is luxury, right? Fedora over my face, I recall nights spent in the company of waterfalls.

An announcement is made: RTD has scrambled all available buses, lined up personal snowplow escorts, and will resume one round of service. Yes, even to Boulder, although with 36 closed they will take 7 instead. I find the bus. Few others do, but a cheerful woman sitting next to me informs me that her birthday is tomorrow. I pull out my ID—mine was today. We laugh. Excellent conversation ensues for the rest of the ride. The trip is otherwise uneventful until the snowplow escort somehow isn’t there anymore.

Lines of parked, deserted, buried cars sit like sinister monoliths in the middle of the highway, and to avoid them we eviscerate snowdrifts. One woman says to the driver, “My house is here. Can you please let me off?” We stop, and she exits into the raging blizzard. No house, no sidewalk, no streetlight, no sign is anywhere in sight. She postholes through the drifts, disappears in the whiteness.

3 hours later, we’re stuck. We missed our turn by a handful of meters and we cannot back up. Nor can we go forward in the huge bus—“No through traffic.” 20 minutes of pensive skidding and all of the passengers join in the search for creative solutions. We pull forward, trusting that the road will flatten out soon. It does, and then we can back uphill to where our turn was.

Finally, Table Mesa Park-and-ride. I retrieve my camera.

big	The snow is deep on the parking lot roof. There’s a plowed zone that is only knee-deep, but to get there I have to stomp through mid-thigh drifts. I’m glad I put on my gaiters (gear sluts forever!!!) but sad that I stopped there—my dreamy Ibex ski pants are in the bag on my back.
big	I am parked next to a Prius. Wonderful car but it would be difficult to induce me to trade Hyatt for this particular exemplar right now.
big	The parked cars have developed porcine snouts!
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big	The Mantra Of Parked Audi: “Dig a hole to the door. Get in. Drive away.” Indeed, I was easily able to back out of my parking spot…
big	…and promptly get stuck in the knee-deep corridor. As I sat there seeing if I could rock my way into some momentum (it was going pretty well, thanks), some kids came along, whooping and jumping in the snow. “Hey, let’s help that guy!” cried one. Two of them materialise out of the snow behind my car. They’re just done with their last exams, and celebrating in the best possible way. They push, I drive, and off we all careen across the parking lot, whooping and shouting. I make it to the covered part of the lot. There has been enough wind that even down here the surface is hardpack and ice, but that is OK.
big	Home! Yes, I decided to shovel to get in there. That was a deep snowbank.
big	Home! Yes, it’s still coming down. I can’t find the steps to the porch, so I end up kicking steps into the snowdrift that lives where the stairs used to be.
big	Good morning.
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