It was a lot of driving...
But I had ZERO difficulties, not even a single traffic jam.
On my return trip I left Denver ~10:30 am Saturday spent one night at a hotel near St. Louis and got back to Maryland ~1am Monday morning (Feb 28th). I finished a Stephen King audio book and started the Baroque Cycle... For obvious reasons I spent a lot of my time listening to various news channels on Sirius Radio instead of listening to books as I had planned.
The cold snap was brutal, but I had lots of appropriate clothing. I spent the week there working to improve the safety of my mother's apartment...
Something about Denver - probably the dry air- really made it difficult to sleep more than a few hours at night... I was exhausted by the end of it.