This morning, we awoke to find three inches of fresh powdery snow coating Camp Davis. Snow that had been pushed back into arching piles by the opening doors of Man Camp and the office trailer. Snow that was blanketing Cornhole Alley and obscuring the planks marking its perimeter. Snow coating the trucks so they looked clean and white again. Snow soft and wet and ready to melt in the day’s sun in order to muddy up the roads and make driving on them hell once again.
Sure enough, while I stood at the lookout overlooking Government Slide Draw, the sun went to work on the snow. By the time I started heading down the hill toward the freeway, the dirt road I was on was soft and yielding and slippery again. It demanded caution. It demanded 4-wheel-drive.
I haven’t had to use 4-wheel-drive in over a month.
I wasn’t looking forward to driving back up the Hudson-Atlantic road. This was a road, back in February, that was dripping malice. This was a road that thought nothing of sliding us into the flanking ditches, or forcing us to chug along slowly while cutting massive winding ruts into its soft back. This was a road that we had to work around, scheduling our tasks so we’d do most of our driving in the early morning or late evening when the treacherous mud had frozen to a more drivable solid. This was a road that had violent mood-swings, pleasant and hard as concrete one moment then slippery and untrustworthy the next. It was like it was on PMS.
Yet to my surprise, by the time I worked my way back up to camp, the road was fine. More than fine. Much better than the road out of Government Slide Draw had been.
So tell me this…what is the reason? Time or Distance? A few hours or a few miles? Had this road gotten less snow in the first place, a factor of location? Or was that extra hour in Lander enough for the sun not only to melt all that snow but also dry the mud and tame that ornery road?
Either way, I guess it just confirms what Sue and Stan have told us: If you don’t like the weather in Wyoming, just wait five minutes, or drive five miles.
