I woke up and walked into the great room, accompanied by 2 noisy cats (you'd think they were starving, as though there wasn't a full bowl of dry munchie food available 24/7) and noticed that Taos Mountain was no where to be found! Completely whited out! As you know by know, Taos Mountain is fully visible from the front door.
By 3 p.m. there were about 9 inches on the ground and I decided to head back to the house from the plaza. Early, to beat the "traffic" (Cincinnati thinking) - but there was very little
traffic, the roads were surprisingly clear, and all was great until I was turning off Kit Carson onto Piedmont. A small incline that the Kia Sorrento barely cleared - and then the car slid sideways and almost off the side of the road. Just far enough that I'm in deep snow and not getting enough traction to get out. Fortunately, a really nice guy happened along and offered to "push" me out and offered this sage advice as I was slowing driving away, "just don't stop!" Good advice - until I make the turn onto the road the house sits on, and am not going anywhere but sliding back toward another steep dropoff. Not good! Putting the car into its lowest gear doesn't help, either. After about 15 minutes of trying to get up the road, it is clear to me that I will have to leave the car on the road for the night. I"m not thrilled about this and realize that I not only have to find a safe place for the car (of course it's white) where it won't impede anyone's efforts to drive or not be noticed and run into or where it will get stuck. I don't see any 4 wheel drive options, and of course didn't read the instruction manual, and was NOT going to call the owners and worry them, so I drove to the end of the road, to the entrance of the government property. I parked it to the side of the gate, allowing room for gov't vehicles to have room to pass by, wrote a note with my phone # and left it on the dashboard, sent a silent offering to the universe to care for the car, took my computer bag and carry all bag and begin the walk to the house. Wearing no boots! And the wind coming off the mountains feels like knives are cutting the skin on my face..... dangerous weather for sure.
The good news is that the next morning I went to get the car, (wearing boots!), and it not only started right up, but wasn't stuck. The embarrassing news is that when I finally called and told Pintki about this episode Sunday, she laughed and told me that it is a 4 wheel drive vehicle and that the button is just to the left of the steering column --- which of course I couldn't see in the dark!!!
The mountain was beautiful over the next day or two following the big snowfall - notice the pink light at the top of Taos Mountain in one, and the clouds that hang near the top of the mountain peak in the other......
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