The Wyoming Chronicles Continue.
[See Tuesday and Wednesday posts]

On October 3 Lola woke up and decided she wanted to drive to Fort Collins, Colorado. The home of Colorado State University and a thirty mile drive south through snow-capped mountains and breathtaking mesas. Lola [and her friend visiting from Long Island] gathered a few traveling goodies: water, cookies, chips, broccoli tips, and then we all marched toward the Volvo, anxious to spend the day in the excitedly more diverse town of Fort Collins.

As we drove thru downtown Laramie toward the highway I noticed what seemed like half of the town scurrying in and out of Walmart and the nearby grocery store. I pointed it out to Lola [I was driving, she was busy being chauffeured.] Lola looked over at the could-be mayhem and then back toward her Long Island visitor and continued her convo about married men and the troubles they find.

The drive down to Fort Collins was spectacular. Mountains on both sides of the state highway. Hawks, deer and I believe we even saw an elk and an eagle.

Once we arrived into Fort Collins we could feel we were shining. Vegan restaurants, a bookstore with an African-American section. Black students who were NOT athletes. [Out of the 106 African American students at the University of Wyoming, both undergrad and grad, 98 were athletes. There were 10, 000 students altogether.] After finding easy parking for the Volvo, we hit the streets of Fort Collins. We were exhaling. We were smiling. We were near some BLACK FOLK... well, kinda. We quickly found a great little restaurant that catered to meat-free needs and supplied my favorite: water, no ice.

Once the food arrived we got comfy and urban. We discussed the presence of blackness in white academia, Lola's experiences with insane artists from San Francisco, her accusations that Toni Morrison stole her ideas from the works of Henry Dumas [I disagreed], Ishmael Reed's anglophilia [I didn't know the man so I didn't care], the mouth-dropping classicness of Lena Horne and her biggest muse: John Coltrane, oh, and course, her loving daughter at UCLA. After Lola exhausted us with her never-ending life, we left and headed toward a Native American store where we perused in silence for over an hour. It started to rain. I had my eye on some moccasins. It started to rain. Lola sat in a corner, skimming through Black Elk Speaks. It started to rain. The friend from Long Island was trying to find some knickknacks to purchase for her two children at home alone with her momentarily estranged husband [they were going through some things].

It started to rain.

And the cashier behind the counter announced that for anyone driving back up the pass they should leave because it was expected to snow. When we asked about those traveling back to Laramie, the cashier looked at our out-of-town faces and said: You didn't hear? Laramie is expecting a blizzard. You guys need to get out of here.

We were in the Volvo on US Hwy 287 within ten minutes.

As I drove, Lola was certain all would be fine. It was only raining. I explained that rain turns to snow in the mountains and I that I've never driven through snow in the mountains during a could-be blizzard. She said this: Toughen up, don't get soft on me.

We drove. It rained. And then... it started snowing. And snowing. And getting windy. And snowing harder and harder and windier and windier until I could not see out the front windshield. We were driving through a blizzard on October 3.

Needless to say, I was scared out of my wits. The snow started to blow horizontally which was causing my vision to be challenged. Not to mention I had to pull the car over a few times to wipe the snow off the windshield [the wipers were also of no use]. The danger of that was you couldn't see anything out on that highway, so any minute a truck or a car could have bulldozed right into us. The danger of that was it was extremely cold. The danger of that was I could have rung Lola's neck, period.

After pounds of snow, after literally being run off the road by a Mac Truck, we finally made it back to Laramie. It took two hours. And even though Laramie had "been spared" [there was six inches of snow instead of the expected two feet, we were at our wit's end. And classic Lola said something quite classic. "We should have stayed in Fort Collins. But next time we travel Keith, I need you to check the weather forecast. You need to cover all bases."

Until next time,

Keith