It was SNOWING!!!

Yesterday morning, during a break in the rain, (or so I thought...) I took a ride up the mountain. Nope. Not the end of the rain. There had been many, many more small rock slides and I could tell that the CALTRANS crew (bulldozer and truck) had been up and down the mountainous road. From behind the clouds, I could get glimpses of snow and I wanted to take a look for myself, so up the mountain road I headed. Hmmm...why am I the only car going up? I stopped at Vista Point, a huge overlook, and it was deserted except for one other car. A woman was looking over the stone pillars and I stopped to chat with her. Turns out, she was from Canada. Nice lady. She was planning to drive to Idyllwild!!! I laughed. I told her, "No way. The road is closed ahead. Didn't you see the sign?" The dreaded "CHAINS REQUIRED" sign was up again...sigh...and I asked her if she had chains. NOPE. Oh, well...she said she would drive as far as she could and she and I played tag for the rest of the morning! And, no, she didn't get much further than I did. I passed her as she was going DOWN the mountain! The rain was cold and near freezing and suddenly...it was eerily quiet. But, white stuff was coming down...SNOW! It was so neat. I stopped my car, rolled down the window, and just listened. Silence. Ah, wonderful silence! I only drove as far as I went the previous day, not wishing to get stuck in the stuff myself, and, being a native Californian, I have NO IDEA how to drive in snow, so I just went slowly and stayed on the main highway and turnouts which I knew were paved. Up came the CALTRANS crew and back down the highway they went. Apparently they turn around at about the same spot (the Sugarloaf Cafe) that I did. I found them at the bottom of the hill, stopped, and got out out my car to chat with them. Turns out, they are from Indio and on Thursday they spent 14 hours going up and down the mountain, clearing the road! They expected to do another 14 hour day yesterday. Nice fellows! I thanked them for their hard work and told them I'd been playing tag with them all morning! It's still snowing in the mountains this morning, so hubby and I will drive up either late this morning or early afternoon. And, the Palm Springs tram had to shut down due to ice on the cables. A few people were stuck on top and had to wait until crews could clear the ice off the cables before they were put back into tram cars and brought down the hill! It was 19 degrees at the top of Mt. San Jacinto yesterday!