—

Living close against a mountain range means that I spend a lot of time looking out into my backyard, ignoring the street and house lights to the east that interfere with an otherwise uninterrupted view. Though I’ve had my living room window view for four years now, I still find myself looking out, looking up, and always seeing something new and spectacular in the sky. Stepping outside to feel it more. Wanting to capture it in a photograph yet knowing that even Hubble photographs can only represent a fraction of the beauty that is experienced in person.

Some moments are only meant as moments. Trying to capture them, to more fully share or relive the moment, is impossible.

—

In a somewhat undramatic turn of events, we got in to see Bass Ackwards! It turns out that the theater wasn’t even full. After we were seated and waiting for the film to start, I asked a girl in front of us to take a photo of me and Marie. She did, and I returned the favor. We shared a nice conversation with her and her sister, who turned out to be 2/3 of teenage triplets from Phoenix. Their other sister stayed at home with their dad to go to a dance instead of going with their mom to Park City. Obviously we know who the cool ones are: Sydney and Giselle!

The picture of them is much cuter than the picture of me and Marie. My fault, mostly. And the lady a few rows behind us who was eating in a somewhat ungracious manner.

So finally, at 8:30pm, we were able to see a film at Sundance. Unfortunately, it was not as wonderful as we’d hoped it would be. Marie put it well when she called it self-indulgent. The director was also the co-screenwriter and the main character. He seemed like a nice enough guy during the Q & A, but still.

Though there were elements of the film that were touching and very well-done, there were also elements that dragged on and I felt should have been edited down or out. Bass Ackwards was part of the NEXT series at Sundance, which features films done on a “microbudget” by choice, not necessarily necessity. According to the producer, the microbudget was about $100,000 for them. Considering that the film involved a cross-country journey in a small 1976 Volkswagen van, that seems impressive. And the cinematography was pretty awesome.

However, there was waaaay too much screen time of Linas in a deep v-neck t-shirt. Man boobs I can handle, but Men, please note: combining them with deep v-neck t-shirts is a bad idea. Making that a prominent wardrobe choice when the audience is supposed to like the main character is a terrible idea.

And now… drum roll please… Why this 3-part blog is called Park City Whiteout.

Marie and I left the theater a little after 10pm with an interest in going home. No midnight screenings for us, partially because we’re lame like that but also because it was snowing and we knew the drive home was not going to be perfect. I called Ben, who reported that there was a pretty strong system hitting Salt Lake City and headed east into Park City. Niiiice. This is the last photo I took that night.

We caught another bus that dropped us off a quarter (maybe half?) mile or so from the damn Park & Ride we worked so hard to get into. There was an inch or two of snow on the car, but it was starting to come down a little heavier. I started the car, pulled out my long ice scraper/brush, and cleared it off. Marie told me I was “snow-capable” because she would have just started the car and used her windshield wipers to clear things off. I guess growing up in Northeastern Ohio has given me skillz?

There are two ways to get to Provo from Park City: the way we came (a scenic 1-or-2-lanes-each-way state road through Provo Canyon that has a lot of twists and turns) or the longer way down Parley’s Canyon (I-80) through Salt Lake City. We both needed to pee before heading out, because we neglected to use the restroom at the theater before leaving, so we stopped by the Marriott. I asked the girl at the front desk if she’d heard anything significant about the roads, and her answer was basically, “they really suck.” The big storm was not letting up.

She looked up what UDOT (Utah Dept. of Transportation) had to say, and apparently Provo Canyon was closed and Parley’s Canyon was super-hyper-caution-red-zone. I started running through alternatives to driving home in my head—finding a hotel room (not likely), finding a fellow volunteer’s floor to sleep on, maybe just wait a couple hours. A sensible-looking manager walked by and joined our conversation. She confirmed that it would be a messy drive down Parley’s Canyon. But when I asked her what she would do in my place, she revealed that she lived in Salt Lake and would be driving home. “Earlier is always better than later,” she advised.

If I didn’t have my little Subaru with all-wheel drive and fairly new tires, we probably would have stayed in Park City. But I needed to be back at the Sundance Resort for another volunteer shift at 10am. Marie wanted to get home to her family if possible, plus she had faith in my driving, so we grabbed some sandwiches at 7-11 and hit the road.

My car handled very well for the conditions—though I stayed alert and was ready to pull over if necessary. The snow’s intensity varied from light to whiteout as we drove. The road leading up to I-80 wasn’t too bad, but once we hit the interstate it s-u-c-k-e-d. Cars and trucks were moving 15-15 miles an hour in two lanes (on what is regularly a 4 or 5-lane freeway) over a few inches of snow and patches of ice underneath. It looked like the plows hadn’t even touched the road. We passed at least 20 cars and light trucks that were either pulled over or stuck in snow drifts and obviously not making it out of the canyon that night. Several semi trucks were also (wisely) stopped before the summit.

There were three types of people still driving on the road:

1. Those like me with moderately capable cars who drove with confident caution
2. Inconsiderate jerks in big trucks who passed by at unsafe speeds trying to cause accidents, if not be in them themselves
3. Idiots who attempted to navigate those conditions in front-wheel-drive cars without chains or snow tires

My tires slipped a couple times, but my all-wheel drive kicked in and helped me recover quickly—probably assisted by the new-ish tire treads. People of types 2 and 3 made me nervous for different reasons, but overall it seemed that the drivers on the road knew what they had gotten themselves into. Only once did I think I really might be in an accident: I wanted to pass a sedan that was slipping and sliding all over the road but going much slower than everyone else. I waited until it was slipped off to the right, then I hugged the left as much as I dared and sped up a little faster than I was comfortable with. I was almost past it when it started sliding suddenly in my direction… it was closer than I would have liked.

But we made it down the canyon unscathed! (Unless you could white-tinged knuckles as scathed.) The downhill slope of the canyon I’d been worried about really wasn’t that bad at 30 miles an hour as long as I kept a safe distance from the cars ahead of me. The kicker was coming out of the canyon and turning onto I-215, where the snow suddenly changed to a light drizzle and the roads were wet but otherwise clear. Yes, Viriginia, there really is a difference in precipitation types at different elevations.

Marie was perfect company for that ride. She helped keep the mood light without being a distraction. And fed me Pringles of Comfort when conditions allowed. She even gave me permission to gnaw on her arm if we got stuck and she was the first to die from the elements. What a gem!

I finally got home around 1:45am, about three hours after we left the theater to head to the car. It was a huge relief to be home, even though I only had a few hours to sleep before my shift the next morning.

The moral of the story is don’t attempt to drive in Parley’s Canyon during a big snowstorm unless you have a snow-capable car and a healthy fear of your own mortality. And always carry a shovel, blanket, flashlight, and sand or cat litter in case of winter emergency. (And/or a friend who is okay with cannibalism in the event that survival is on the line.)

The excitement of my evening shift for the festival was dominated by the weather. It, uh, sucked. The road that leads into Sundance Canyon was closed for an hour or so shortly before I arrived because of snowfall and dangerous conditions and accidents. Hooray! It was open when I got there, but a cop stationed with flashing lights at the mouth of the canyon, right by the huge “snow tires/chains/4-wheel drive required” sign, stopped me to check. I have a little all-wheel drive Subaru (with relatively new tires, thank the flying spaghetti monster) so I was permitted to pass.

I took it slow and made it safely. The resort was blanketed in snow and totally gorgeous. Night skiing is new this year, so there were a lot of skiiers still on the mountain and clomping out in the parking lot. My cell phone reception sucked almost as much as the weather, possibly due in part to the weather, so I didn’t get to send the cell phone photos I took. But Twitpic is working, so yay for that! I did upload some photos to Flickr.

I didn’t end up watching much of either movie last night, but got to know the new volunteers and re-learned a little about people I worked with last year. I got my white volunteer jacket (which I have NOT yet dirtied), which fits for the most part.

The biggest adventure started after my shift ended at 10:30. I don’t have time to tell it in full right now because I’m supposed to meet my friend Marie and drive up to Park City in a little bit. But I didn’t get home until almost 1:30am. And it involved a little bit of this. Oooo, teaser!

Nice inversion that’s trapping all the pollution inside the valley, huh? It’s pollution that makes me long for the fresh mountain air of summer, when the lake and mountains on the west side of the valley are visible.

Complain though I might, it’s nice to live a very short distance from views like these.

Except for this little detail: I am straining right now when it comes to a topic that will be A) interesting to you and B) something I feel like writing about today. I started a different blog post earlier, but I don’t feel like finishing it right now, and I’ve been tired all day and my eyes are dry again, blah blah blah.

Oh! Speaking of dry eyes. And breathing, but sort of not really. When I went out to my car this morning, that’s how I felt. I briefly wondered if maybe I was starting to get sick? There wasn’t any pain in my lungs. It’s just that the air was sort of… chunky? Heavy? A big lightbulb went off in my head when I turned the car on and the local NPR radio personality’s first word to me was “Provo, Utah, blah blah, worst air quality in the nation at a level of 140 followed by Salt Lake City at 122, with L.A. being at 51.”

I don’t know if those numbers are exactly right, but that was not surprising. I’m guessing that those numbers are just for a certain time period, like a day or week or something, because I can’t imagine Provo being more polluted than L.A. all the time. We have this thing the locals call an inversion, which means that because our valley is completely surrounded by mountains, when we have overcast skies and low-hanging clouds it’s basically like a domed arena and all the pollution is trapped inside. And there is a finite amount of beer.

Yeah, icky.

Well, I better publish this before my time is up. Hopefully there will be more quality in tomorrow’s post.

It started early and has been a very wet winter for Utah—which is GREAT for the mountain snow pack, should it ever actually start to melt and fill the rivers and reservoirs with water. But there has been a little Springtime torture mixed in lately that is driving me NUTS.

***

Exhibit A: Sunday, April 12, 2009

I took this photo on Easter and thought, “Oh wow! Spring has finally sprung!”

It had been chilly and rainy in the afternoon but warmed up enough to be simply cool and delightful. Ben and I sat outside and enjoyed the early evening sun until it got too cold.

The past couple weeks have had spotty sun and more day-to-day clouds than I think I’ve ever seen since moving to Utah. I’m just being whiny*, of course. This is still no comparison to Cincinnati’s total of 4 nice days a year.

***

Exhibit B: Tuesday, April 14, 2009

It got colder again and rained for a good portion of the day. As I was walking on the university campus with my bold purple umbrella protecting me, I had to try very hard not to smile and laugh and all of the people who weren’t even wearing jackets, let alone carrying umbrellas.

It made me think of a recent episode of Heroes when Angela Petrelli chides Noah for being out in the rain without an umbrella. And then that irritated me because hello, Heroes? Needs to just quit being a telenovela and kill everyone off except Hiro. And then Hiro needs to be badass like Future Hiro in Season 1.

***

Exhibit C: Wednesday, April 15, 2009

It was raining again this morning when I left my house at 7:30. I was already grumpy (see time stamp in previous sentence**) and traffic sucked. (See also: Utah drivers suck.) My classes have been a joke today, and I certainly would have preferred to stay home.

So. I knew it would probably snow in the mountains, but it wasn’t supposed to get cold enough to snow down here in the valley… and yet here is the evidence that Mother Nature wants me to go home right now and plant my face into a pan full of warm brownies and take a nap, not necessarily exclusive of each other. Her mood swings are clearly contagious, and not in a good way. Father Time really needs to step up and give that woman/deity a full-body massage and her own pan of chocolate-frosted brownies. STAT.

It’s still snowing and it’s accumulating on the ground. I think I’m going to go home now.

*While I was being whiny about the weather, my friend in Edmonton, Alberta (that’s in Canada!) got her car stuck in a ditch in the middle of a REAL snowstorm. How lame of me to be complaining about RAIN and CHILLY.

**And many of my friends reminded me that 7:30 is NOT as bad as it could be. Waking times of 6:15 and 6am were thrown out, and then trumped by a military woman’s 4am wake-up call. I would get kicked out pretty fast if I had to get up at 4am on a regular basis. That’s closer to bedtime, people! Another career perhaps not for me: farming.

On the plus side, it makes early morning drives very pretty because of all the frost that collects on the trees. The frost disappears mid-morning, leaving the trees a drab winter brown—but then the frost reappears again overnight. It’s fabulously magical and makes it easier to get up on cold winter mornings.

“It’s FREEZING in here,” I said after coming home from grocery shopping after work. Ben rolled his eyes and kept on working. I played a little Mario Galaxy (I’m at 23 stars now) until my hands turned into icicles.

“It’s really, really cold in the house,” I said. Ben rolled his eyes again and told me to wait until he was finished. He eventually turned the heat back on and closed the windows. I checked the current temperature for our town on weather.com: 8 degrees. That’s -13.3 degrees Celsius.

“I told you it was cold in here,” I said with an icy stare (literally; I think my eyeballs are still coated with a sheet of ice).

“Oh hey,” I then said. “I should check to see what the weather forecast is for Park City on Wednesday when I’ll be there.”

A high of 13? Fuuuuuuuuck… At least I’ll get a free coat from the Sundance people. I can wear it over my other coat.

We kept the windows cracked last night to relish the fresh air… but it was definitely too-cold-to-get-up this morning. Yeah, so it dropped down to near freezing last night. This mountain-desert weather throws me sometimes, but I still prefer it to perma-cloudy Cincinnati, with its 45 degrees or 85 degrees with 95% humidity all the time. I do, however, miss the Cleveland snow belt weather, with the 1 to 2-foot dumps of lake-effect snow. Frosty!

It’s cool and sunny right now and quite humid today at 54%. Relatively speaking.