Late last week Chad Hays, who works for me, asked for the next Wednesday off (today) to go see a golf tournament in Tucson. He later rescinded the request, saying there was a 70% chance of rain. I thought to myself, "Hey, man, this is Arizona. It could be sunny and eighty, for all we know."
Well, it turns out Chad made a good call. Woke up to a light rain this morning and it was quite cool out. The weather forecasters said it should clear out by noon, but when Ken A. and I went to lunch at Rubios, it was still coming down when we came back at one. Then, at about three it started to hail. That was kind of weird. But it kept coming and by four our parking lot looked like this:
The hail gradually turned to snow and it came down and just kept coming. People were running through the office, exclaiming, "This is crazy. This is just crazy!" (Okay, full disclosure, this was me). Finally, I bundled up and walked outside, hiked up the hill behind the True West World Headquarters and took this shot of Black Mountain.
At about 5:15 I headed for home. At the top of School House Road I took this photo of Elephant Butte, with Sugarloaf looking like the Matterhorn:
On the drive home it was crazy. People stopped in washes, kids running and throwing snowballs. I've live out here for 55 years and I've never seen it like this. Sure it's snowed before but this one was weird. Crazy weird. Not sure why, but it was.
Got home and marveled at the home turf. Here's the view to the north of us:
And here's Ratcliff Ridge:
Even my chickens were weirded out. Check out that rooster. He's never seen anything like this!
But the final note of the symphony happened at about six. I was walking over to the main house when I saw Ratcliff Ridge in darkness and Continental Mountain behind it lit up. I ran and got my phone—yes, my phone!—and took this photo:
And as I walked back to the house, I looked over my shoulder for one more peek and it was gone.
"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."
—Paul Dirac
