We’re in Orem, Utah, spending a couple of nights at our daughter Heather’s home before returning to Colorado Springs on Monday. The weather is fairly unsettled with intermittent snow squalls. The snow isn’t sticking on the valley floor, but hopefully is adding a lot of snow in the mountains. The drought in this area of Utah is more severe than it is in Colorado Springs.
We’re on our way back home. We left late Wednesday afternoon and drove as far as Rawlins, Wyoming. The last hour of that trip was quite miserable driving through a very intense snow storm. There are a lot of truck drivers who have no fear! They were barrelling through the storm even though the road and road markings were not visible at all. They made the driving more dangerous for the rest of us (and I’m sure, in their selfishness, they’ve given no thought to that aspect of their driving). On Thursday we drove the rest of the way to Soda Springs, Idaho.
We spent Thursday night visiting with my parents. They are both doing quite well and we had a delightful visit. Dad has lost a significant amount of weight — so much so that the doctors have told him he can now stop losing weight. As we arrived in Soda Springs there was a major snow storm going on. In the past twenty-four hours almost a foot of snow had fallen. On Friday morning the temperature was about 4 degrees! It was mighty cold and very much reminiscent of the Soda Springs that I grew up in.
Friday we drove to Spokane, Washington, the destination for this trip. When our daughter Dawnmarie along with her husband and family moved to Pennsylvania, they had to leave some of the outdoor stuff behind. Nina and I decided to go over to Spokane, pick up the stuff, and then we’d take it with us when we go out east in July. We had a reservation for a U-Haul trailer. The reservation turned out to be west of town towards Fairchild AFB. After picking up the trailer, we then drove over to Dawnmarie’s inlaws to pick up the furniture. We spent the night in a Shilo Inn in Couer d’Alene, Idaho.
Saturday we drove from Couer d’Alene to Orem. The drive through Montana was spectacular. Overnight there had been a light snow followed by very cold temperatures. The trees were spectacular and the drive was very interesting. Whenever we travel somewhere, we take a guide book with us, or buy one if we’re going somewhere we don’t have the book. Mostly we like the books published by Moon as they’re organized by the way you drive through the state. It is a lot of fun to read about the places along the route we’re driving. As we drove south from Butte, Montana, we read about Virginia, Nevada City, and Banack — gold towns in that region where lawlessness reigned until people finally became fed up and finally took their towns back from the crooks and criminals.
It’s a twelve-hour drive (driving the speed limit) from Couer d’Alene to Orem, Utah. The terrain along the route is varied and interesting. We found the drive very interesting but were happy to get to Orem where we’d spend two nights before driving the rest of the way back to Colorado Springs.
I’m finally beginning to feel better. Nina has done all the driving on this trip while I’ve been a map reader, guide book reader, and snoozer. We’ve had a good trip, but feeling lousy isn’t helpful. But, I think by about Wednesday or so, I’ll be completely back to normal. I’m really looking forward to that day!
But someday we want to return back to Montana and do some sightseeing. It is definitely an interesting place!