Come From the Land of Ice and Snow

The Frogs are driving up the hill to Breckenridge for an opening ski-weekend date with our good friends from New Orleans, Johnny Sketch and The Dirty Notes. The snow is falling and the flakes are huge, covering cases and clothing as we load equipment into the car for the ride to the show. Johnny Sketch and his Dirty Notes plan meticulously while traveling on tour through such treacherous weather; New Orleans is drastically different in terms of the driving skills necessary to navigate a 16-passenger van and attached trailer through the curvy, icy mountain passes on Interstate 70. Winter in Colorado is oftentimes very inhospitable. Growing up here, I’ve often wondered if all of the overturned semi’s and avalanche victims (the most in the country) warrant our obsession with snow. Try posing that question to the determined people occupying the long line of cars adjacent to us, heading eastbound toward Denver after a full day of early-season skiing.

Winter is big business in Colorado. The influx of tourist dollars and international business keeps the Vail Valley on the list of top resort areas in the world every year and keeps state tax coffers satiated. Despite the freezing temperatures, dangerous driving, I-70 closures (just pulled up to our own line of westbound traffic), and the requisite carrying heavy speakers on ice-caked concrete at 2:30am after the show, the Frogs are stoked for winter just like everybody else.

Along with those tourist dollars and an international travel contingent which serves as its own form of viral publicity when visitors return home with a Frogs CD in tow, comes better attended shows and more money flowing through the door for the band.

Thor’s hammer is being raised for the first time tonight as temperatures dip to their lowest level of the year. Back on the eastbound side of the highway, people have put their cars in park and are standing in small groups, talking of the ski day or crappy weather causing the current gridlock. We continue to cruise, a constant mist of white jets back at our windshield from the smaller cars in front of us. The gears of winter are being greased, the season is here.