Snow arrives over Thornton in the dark, filling the grid between 88th and 120th while most of the city is still asleep. On the move is exactly what the night asks for: headlights swinging into one driveway and then the next, blade down, a clean black rectangle left where a white one used to be. Walks get cut all the way to the concrete, so the morning trip to the car is just a walk and nothing more. When the sun finally comes up off the plains and turns the Front Range pink in the west, the drives are open and the run to I-25 belongs to whoever is driving it. Snow removal for homes and businesses here, arriving while it is still falling and finishing before the day begins.