Didn't Quite Make It To Albuquerque

Above, Interstate 40 traffic near Thoreau. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Today, I was to take Larry Lucier to his dentist appointment in Albuquerque.

The forecast for today was partly cloudy with 0% chance of precipitation. Sounded good.

It didn't exactly turn out that way. It clouded up about two hours before we were to head to Albuquerque and then it started snowing.

Above, nice sign. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

We debated whether or not to go, but the snow was more of a light dusting. So we headed out.

All was going good on eastbound Interstate 40 until we saw stopped vehicles ahead near Continental Divide. Then, it started snowing. At times, it snowed hard. We then slowed to a crawl for about an hour. There was no indication on the cause of the tie-up. At least I took the opportunity to call my cousing and wish her a happy birthday while stopped.

We decided to skip going to Albuquerque and head back to Jamestown. Except the traffic got even worse before we reached Thoreau. Once we got to the Thoreau off-ramp, we saw that the New Mexico State Police were diverting traffic off Interstate 40 at the Thoreau off-ramp and the freeway was closed from there. (We later heard it was due to a bad accident.)

Above, snowing in Thoreau as we were stopped in traffic. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Once we got off at Thoreau, we went under the overpass and headed onto the westbound ramp to go back to Jamestown.

Getting back was not easy either. The New Mexico Dept. of Transportation closed one lane about five miles from our exit. 

Once we reached our off-ramp, we headed to Denny's at the Flying J. We were joined by Victor, Greg and Russell. 

By the time we were done eating, the skies cleared and the sun came out. What a morning. 

The weatherman did not get this one right!

UPDATE:

I found that the road closure was due to this traffic accident in Prewitt, near the exit.