Into the Sun

Getting to Arizona this February was harder than it ought to have been. Two snowstorms in Murray delayed us, and one of our cars was stuck fast on snow that turned to ice under the wheels when we tried to negotiate the thirty yards or so uphill to the street out of our driveway. Triple A wasn’t taking residential calls and local towing services refused to come out on uncleared county roads, so we waited a couple of days until the road was plowed. Then, with the help of a tow truck and a tractor with a blade to clear some of the six-inch slush-turned-to-jagged ice in the areaway, we were ready to go. Then freezing rain overnight and another six inches of snow ambushed us in Texarkana, so we had to stay a day there. We got to Big Spring in time for more freezing rain overnight and a couple of inches of snow. We agonized over whether to get on the road again, finally leaving at midmorning. One lane was mostly clear on the freeway, and we drove through startling landscapes: first swirling mist coming from the roadbed and a horizon whited  out by snow and mist in every direction; then freezing mist building up ice on the windshield in a landscape of a million mesquite trees covered with heavy frost. The mist turned to freezing fog before we came suddenly down the mountain into Van Horn to sunshine. Sunshine the rest of the way.