Our final driving day on our trip to California went by quite smoothly. No snow storms, not much traffic (if you don’t count Las Vegas) and some great roadside views.
When we started out the local bank was flashing 18 degrees. Brrrrrr. But the roads were clear, and once we got out of the frozen parking lot, we were on our way!

Kind of an unlikely spot for a lighthouse, but it made for a pretty picture!
And gradually the snow disappeared, until it was only on the distant mountains.



And notice the blue sky – more good news!

Although we were driving through desert, the surrounding mountains were breathtaking -


We made a quick stop in St. George (UT), and when we returned to the interstate, I couldn’t help but feel like the mountian had been painted on a backdrop behind this town-

Interstate 15 cuts through the NW corner of Arizona, through the Virgin River Canyon.
Oh. My. Goodness.







And then around the next corner -

Honest, that picture was taken less than two minutes from the one before! If you ever have the opportunity to drive those 30 miles of I15 in Arizona, DO IT! And then go hug a road engineer.

After Arizona came Nevada -




There’s Las Vegas in the distance – with the really shiny building!

And after Las Vegas we left the interstate and went south on 95 – which had recently been redone for the truck traffic that was no longer able to cross the Hoover Dam.

Long, straight, four lanes – just the kind of road that would make Gary say – “Wanna drive?”

Gulp! I drove for about 50 miles, until the road turned into two lanes and dippy!

I love those mountains in the background -

Then, of course, there was more desert

and more desert

And now we are parked at the Walmart in Palm Desert!
Tomorrow morning we’ll go into our project and get a little better aquainted with the area. We’ve already found the closest In ‘n Out Burger. And we’ve downloaded tomorrow’s weather report.
Sunny and 83.
Wow.

We were delighted to be able to connect with our niece, Bethany, who lives outside of Salt Lake City in Ogden. She and I had a great afternoon exploring SLC (while Gary did a little R&R in the Walmart parking lot). I love it when I can “see” a city with someone who is familiar with it and expecially when they do the driving!
Our drive into town started with some very interesting traffic -

(I’ve seen some pretty big things going down the road, but with the exception of a house we saw going down the street in Bonifay, FL, I think this wins!)
But Salt Lake City – Very nice!



You can’t really ‘do’ SLC without visiting some of the major Mormon landmarks, so we took in a few -
This is a view of “The Place” where Joseph Smith decided that SLC (well, the area) was The Place for he and his followers to settle.

I’m not sure why, but there is also a monument to the Pony Express there too.

(I loved all the snow. It’s much nicer in the cities and on the statues that it was later on Interstate 15 over the mountains.)
And of course there was Temple Square. We managed to avoid the plethera of Mormon Missionaries that want to show you around, and I enjoyed having Bethany give her insights.





(My two pictures of Beth were blurry – so you’ll have to trust me, she’s lovely!)

We shared a lovely meal, had a great time catching up, and were very thankful for our time together. Truly one of the great perks of this lifestyle is being able to touch base with folks we love!

The other is being able to drive the house to where it’s warm!

We’re on the road again, after a delayed departure from Nampa as we waited (and waited) for the return of my computer. Getting on the road at 5PM is not really our idea of a good start, but start we did. We are headed to Southern California – Jordan Outreach Ministries in Coachella, CA. (I understand it was 75 there today. It’s going to be 14 here tonight.)

Since we wanted to stop and see my niece near Salt Lake City, we were heading SE across the lower part of Idaho. I gotta tell you – there is not much to see!


We obviously didn’t get too far (trying to find a place to park in the dark is really not fun), but we were on our way bright and early the next morning. We were hoping to get to Salt Lake City by noon.




We did finally hit some traffic just as we were coming to the The Great Salt Lake -

And this is pretty much all we saw of the lake (as we sat in traffic!)


We did manage to hook up with Bethany just after noon, and she and I took a tour of Salt Lake City (while Gary kicked back, took a nap and did some reading.). She was a great tour guide – and I’ll do a separate post of that! (I promise!).

This morning we were on the road a little after 6AM – hoping to beat some of the Salt Lake City traffic (we were pretty much driving from one side of the city to the other on the interstate). Pretty much all we managed to do is join in all the traffic in the dark. We made it through and eventually left the traffic behind us.

What we didn’t leave behind us was the snow, and although there were stretches without any of the white stuff,

we could tell by the white stuff hanging on the distant mountains, that there was indeed more snow in dem dar mountains.
When we stopped for fuel at around 9AM we learned that the mountain passes (our route) were requiring chains so we figured we better stay put. As the day wore on we kept seeing lots of other RVs and trucks heading south on I15 and we finally decided that we would give it a shot. We had a full tank of diesel and a full tank of propane, so we figured we were set. Oh, and we also talked with someone who had come from that direction and he said the roads weren’t too bad. The sky even seemed to be clearing some, so off we went.

Looks OK so far…..

Alright, so it’s starting to snow pretty good, but the road is still pretty clear.

Hmmmmm…the mountains are beginning to disappear in the snow…….

Oh, man, I AM NOT feeling good about this. Slow down!!!!!!

The lanes are getting pretty narrow, and now everyone is going at a snails pace as we climb to the final (I hope) summit.


It was bumper to bumper all the way to the top (apparently a LOT of folks paid no attention to the winter weather warning!), things lightened up a little as we crawled down that “hill”, and after another couple of hours of off and on again snow, we did finally make it to the Walmart in Cedar City. It’s still snowing lightly, and it really is going to be in the mid-high teens tonight, but we made it over the pass and we are VERY THANKFUL!

Time to get snuggled under that wonderful down comforter.
(as soon as the Phillies win, right?)

Those of you who stop by here often know that we had an AMAZING summer. I totally overworked words like Spectacular, Awesome, and Incredible as we drove through British Columbia, the Yukon Territory, Alberta and Alaska. We were overwhelmed (another over-used word) by the mountains and moose and bear and glaciers and fjords and rivers and elk and eagles (etc, etc) that we saw, not to mention the wonderful people that we met and worked along side of during our time there. It was an outstanding, once in a lifetime trip.
There was only one drawback with our whole Alaskan Adventure ’09 scenario. It pretty much ruled out getting to our beloved Cabin in Vermont. We just couldn’t do both. But, for the first time in many, many years, our kids and grandkids ALL made it to the Cabin. And while it wasn’t quite the same as being there ourselves, it did my heart good to hear their stories and see their pictures and know that they were loving that little corner of the world that is so precious to us.
Toby and Tammy and the girls went during the summer. This was their first Cabin trip in nine years, and the girls’ introduction to life at the Cabin. Ah, the adventure of it all!




I’m calling this the Turtle Series:



It sounded like (and looks like!) the girls had a great introduction to the cabin, even with all of it’s rustic (i.e no running water) charm!
Josiah and Abigail went up over Labor Day. They brought up friends for the long weekend(always fun) and then had a couple of days to themselves as the week went on. I know they worked hard on some chores, and I trust they worked hard on kickin’ back and recharging too. What they didn’t work hard on was picture taking….
So, moving on to Lara’s trip – Ah, she came in October. When you keep a fire going all the time and get to enjoy the amazing New England fall colors.

Our backyard swing is becoming a favorite photo spot -
Summer -

Fall -

Yes, we missed getting our “Cabin Fix” in person this year, but a vicarious “fix” is better than none at all!
Thanks, kids!

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We’re still at MAF, even though our original plan was to head out yesterday (Thursday). My computer won’t be back at Best Buy until Monday, so we’re obviously hanging around until then. (They’ve replaced the motherboard again – maybe the third time’s the charm?) Most of the Sower folks have left, so it will be a quiet (and I’m told rainy) weekend. Back to the sewing machine I go!

One way that MAF thanks its volunteers is to offer them a short ride in one of their Cessna 206 airplanes. Friday was our day to take to the skies -

We’d never ridden in a plane that was pulled out of the hanger by two guys. But we were looking forward to the adventure!

Gary got to be the copilot

and I was in the back seat busily documenting our trip -




(Must be the quilter in me, but I love these fields!)

It was a short flight, but so much fun. Gary never did take up the pilot’s offer to let him do the flying, but I think if we have the opportunity again to take to the sky in a small private plane, we’ll probably jump at the chance. Thanks, MAF! It was great!
With our flight under our belts, we were ready for the rest of our Idaho Adventure. We decided to check out a couple of the scenic drives that are nearby – so be prepared – many windshield shots to follow!
I hadn’t really seen much of the surrounding area, having flown into Boise and then had pretty much stuck to the main thoroughfares through Nampa. So right away, I was busy snapping -

It started out pretty “regular”, but soon the distant mountains began to make an appearance -

Soon we were in those mountains –

And then we were at the Snake River (which forms the boundary between Idaho and Oregon in this area).

(Can you tell I was pretty enamored with the reflections?????)

And while the scenery was beautiful, I couldn’t resist at least one macro shot….

From Hell’s Canyon we were heading east to McCall and the lovely drive along the Lower Cascade Lake which would take us back to Nampa. We had to do a fair bit of back-tracking, and decided to take a short cut that (on the map) looked like it would save us some time. Since we could tell it was a dirt road we even asked a local fellow if it was pretty good road. He said, “Well, it’s a little rough on this side of the mountain, but once you get to the top the road is good.” Since it was a day for adventures, off we went. The name of the road? Kleinschmidt Grade. (The operative word here is GRADE.)

Can you see the road we traveled, cutting along the side of the mountain…..
But we made it to the top-

The trip down the other side was pretty tame compared to the drive up -

Good News – Trees to catch us
Bad News – I was on the edge side instead of the mountain side.
We did eventually make it into the valley

and the rest of the ride to McCall and points south was much less heartpounding.

We were beginning to run out of day, but were glad that we persevered and made it to the Lower Cascade Lake.

We certainly only scratched the surface of the beauty that is Idaho, but what we were able to get to was great!

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You know there are more pictures!
MAF Flight
Drive to Hell’s Canyon
Kleinschmidt Grade
Cascade Lake