Capricious Colorado

So I know you've just been dying to know what dumb mistake I made at work to win me the Bonehead title, right?

First, let me explain one of the parts of my job as a consultant. One of my responsibilities was to perform "flow tests." You put a gauge on a fire hydrant, and open the next one down the street, checking the water pressure at both hydrants. Since accurate pressure information is needed when you design a fire sprinkler system, and many fire & water department guys don't have the faintest idea how to do it right (so I learned), I always had to either perform the test myself, or witness the guys doing it to make sure they weren't complete idiots. Which meant that hopefully, I knew what I was doing myself, right?

Well, for the first three months of my job as a consultant-in-embryo, I had always gone to do flow tests with a much more experienced partner. But the time came when my boss insisted that I was ready to do it myself, and I ended up scheduled to do two flow tests in Colorado on my own. In fact, it was my first business trip on my own, period, which scared the living daylights out of me. I had one appointment early in the morning in Golden, and one in late afternoon in Gypsum, which meant I was going to have to leave San Diego at the crack of dawn and return on the last flight out of Denver. I knew it was going to be a long day, I just didn't know how long.

Of course, I was pretty anxious. Downright terrified, actually. To my surprise, I wasn't the only one afraid. My father was appalled to hear that I would be taking this trip without a cell phone. (This was in the prehistoric days when cell phones were not as common as car keys, like they are now.) He insisted I take his phone with me, and thank goodness he did!

Well, I arrived in Denver without incident and made my way to Golden without getting lost. The fire marshal met me at the site, and together we performed a problem-free flow test. He asked me if I was headed back to the airport right off, and I told him about my appointment in Gypsum later in the day. He gave me a look like I was utterly insane!

(Do you have any idea why that might be? I bet Abby might be able to guess, but I was absolutely clueless.)

He then patiently proceeded to inform me that there had been avalanches reported in the passes the I-70 went through, and that I might want to reconsider. My jaw dropped. Avalanches??? It was June, for heaven's sake! Just in case you are as ignorant of Colorado topography as I was, Gypsum is about a 2-3 hour drive from Golden-- in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

But what are avalanches to me? I had a job to do! I thanked the man for his advice, and headed straight for Gypsum. I still had nearly six hours until my next appointment. Figuring that would give me plenty of time to get through the mountains and blithely sure that the report of avalanches must of been somewhere past my destination, I confidently refused to cancel my next flow test.

Can you imagine my chagrin when I had to stop at a rest area in some mountain pass, get out of my car, and stare at the snow coming thickly down? I learned that the passes were open for the moment, but there was no guarantee they would stay open all night.

Still, the freeway looked clear, plenty of cars were still traveling on it, and I decided to press on. So what if I was a Southern Californian, with no more idea of how to drive in snow than to fly?

(To Be Continued)