Even more strange weather in the desert today. At Casa NewMexiKen at 6,000 feet it was sunny and clear beyond description. Every boulder and tree stood out on the mountains. Mt. Taylor glistened 75 miles to the west. And it got to 40°.
Below, in the city, and especially nearer the Rio Grande, it was, in many places, much of the time, a foggy day complete with frozen crystals floating in the air. This evening the fog was dense enough in places to limit visibility to a few car lengths, yet back in the foothills the brilliant clarity remains.
Odd.
Oh, and after driving through several parts of town today, I am here to tell you that much of the city got a dusting of snow compared to the avalanche we got in the heights.
Colorado Springs is full of micro-climes. We will get two feet here by the Air Force Academy and my sister in law, who lives down by Colorado College will get two inches. And sometimes vice versa, though not often.
We decided to head up to the heights and check out the tram yesterday. It was amazingly clear up in your neck of the woods. Then we drove down tramway toward the Sandia Casino and the drive became incredibly surreal. Sunlight bounced off the snow and got caught in the fog along the fences facing the open space. It was beautiful and eerie. By the time we got down to the casino, we couldn’t see ten feet in front of us. We turned around as soon as we could and hightailed it out of there! “Soupy” is the only way I could describe it. It reminded me of Tooley (Tulley? Tooly? Whatever…lol) fog in California.
We ended up at the tram and took some stunning photos. My partner will post them on her flickr account: Over Here
We took Montgomery/Montano home and it wasn’t as bad. However, it was very dreary being in that fog and NOTHING like being in the sunshine. At one point, we were sitting at a stop light, watching the fog engulf everything around us and it appeared to be snowing from the wind knocking the snow off the trees. (My partner said, “Look! It’s snowing!” and she meant it and I laughed and laughed at her, which she didn’t really appreciate, because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky!) Very, very weird. The sun was barely visible through the fog. By the time we got home, we were back in sunshine again.
We stayed in the rest of the day through the night as the fog seemed to get worse and the reports of road closings due to black ice scared the heck out me. Hopefully it kept all the yahoo revellers off the roads last night.
Happy New Year!
🙂