Out on the highway edge of town, where ranch trucks idle in the dark long before anyone opens a gate, Big R Stores - Alamosa handles snow the way a farm-and-ranch store handles most things: early, and with the right iron. Plowing, lot and driveway clearing, sidewalk work and ice control at the doors, so people can get in with gloved hands full. A valley storm often arrives sideways, packing the lee side of every building and leaving bare ground ten feet away, so the first pass goes wherever the wind has stacked it. There is a good feeling in watching a customer swing wide into a lot that was a foot deep at four in the morning. In this country, open pavement is a kind of hospitality.