Lucky you.?ÿ We have strong winds and a wind chill of 12 F with about a half inch of snow.?ÿ Much more than that in other locations not too far away.?ÿ The cows are going to love me when I feed them a bit later.
It's probably good they got through Iowa when they did. I've had enough snow to be a chore in the last two days. This morning half the driveway was nearly bare and half had up to an 10 inch drift.
Every single weed has it's own little elongated drift out in the pasture.?ÿ Powerful wind out of the ENE.
I'm not sure how the married weeds are making out. ??? ??? ??? ??? ????ÿ
Y'all be careful approaching home ground and pay attention, 39% of accidents occur within 30 miles of home. ???ÿ
Glad you are driving away from this.
We have arrived at daughter's beautiful downtown apartment!
Sounds like you made it and I am way late with advice, BUT when I was driving the commercial truck, we liked to avoid the northern routes in winter. Other than around Flagstaff I40 is generally snow free in winter. It of course adds some length, but it was worth it to avoid I70, I80, I90 of the great frozen northlands.
SHG
we liked to avoid the northern routes in winter
Yeah, that was the original plan, until I started looking at extended weather forecasts. This ended up being quite a planning project, but it paid off. Some of the stops required additional considerations for departure times in order to slice between fog advisories, icy road conditions and snow. It ended up working out perfectly. ????
And I....
AM exhausted. I cant wait to sleep in my own bed with my kitties!!!
But it has been a fun journey!!
And we got to spend quality time with our daughter. That's what matters most. ?????ÿ
Currently we're still in Seattle at a fancy hotel downtown.
The Kids needed help so we hung around for another few days to help. ?????ÿ
Home! I plan to write up a summary tomorrow... It was an interesting journey.
For those that care, here's a summary of our trip! 🙂
Friday, January 7, 2022
We're all packed and ready to go! But wait, Southwest has cancelled our flight just hours before we are supposed to depart due to extreme weather conditions in Denver (the weather hadn't hit yet, but they proactively were cancelling flights to avoid stranding passengers in Denver). Then the flight was re-instated. Then cancelled again. Eventually, they told us we were moved to another flight the following afternoon, that goes through Phoenix. Makes sense.
Saturday, January 8, 2022
We make it to Tulsa, finally, by way of Phoenix. We pick up the rental SUV and drive to Fayetteville, AR, where we would help our daughter get packed and prepared for the long drive. I bought chains for the cars, just to be sure. For route considerations, I reviewed my previous decisions for potential routes, stops, and timing, based mostly on weather. The northern route through the Plains states continued to make sense, albeit we knew we'd be threading a needle.
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
We load up the cars with only basic stuff for survival, until the moving company gets my daughter's stuff to her new apartment in Seattle. We have to make specific considerations for the 2 cats and 2 parakeets -- daughter will handle the cats and wife and I will handle the birds. I start the Locatoweb tracking thing and on the road we go!
Within the first hour, we stop because cats are going nuts in their carriers. Daughter fears they are having mental breakdowns. So we stop a few times and she eventually decides to let them free roam to see how they do. They are a bit erratic at first, but eventually settle into their places. They obviously aren't happy, but they are tolerating it much better than when in the carriers. Meanwhile, the birds are happily chirping away and creating a lovely ambience for our drive.
We make to Council Bluffs, Iowa and decide to stay there for the night. The cats are NOT happy. The birds are still just happy as can be.
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
After tearing apart the bed in my daughter's room to extract one of the cats, we finally get everyone loaded up and back on the road. The cats require a couple more short stops along the way, but they seem to be getting a little bit better attitude, especially Nora, the one my daughter says is dumb.
We make it to Rapid City, after a long, boring drive. We consider a trip to Mt. Rushmore, but that adds an hour of driving so we give up on the idea. My back is already getting sore from all the driving, so yeah, I just need to lay flat for awhile.
Thursday, January 13, 2022
Off we go! The cats are getting much better to deal with, although still obviously stressed out. Extraction of the one smaller kitty is obviously going to be a regular morning chore.
As we drive into Montana, the scenery begins to get better and better. By the time we hit Bozeman, we are in love. One thing about Montana that impresses me from the overall driving perspective is how Interstate 90 traverses through the valleys -- the mountains all seem to have a little bit of space between them, so you drive on mostly straight, flat roadways, while observing all the snow on the mountains. It's all SO beautiful.
We are used to wet cold and snow at our home in Salem, Oregon. Rarely does it snow there, but when it does, it's mostly mushy. The humidity level is high enough that 45?ø feels very cold. So when we arrived in Bozeman and saw temps in the 20s, we expected to die the instant we stepped out of the car. That was so untrue -- I was walking around in a t-shirt and thin walking pants in the hotel parking lot in Bozeman for a good solid 30 minutes (rearranging stuff in the cars, etc. to be more efficient) and I never got cold. Not even a little bit. It may have been a cold temperature, but it was arid and actually very refreshing. It was the first time my wife was in the snow and she wasn't complaining about joint pain -- she loved it!
We were a bit nervous about a storm system moving down from Canada... the various weather reports were showing conflicting information. One report said we'd get 5-8 inches of snow, while others said the whole thing would miss us. We just had to sleep on it and see what happens.
Friday, January 14, 2022
Here we go again! The snow never hit us, although there were some reports of icy roadways to the west of us. So we delayed our departure by about 1.5 hours to give it more time to thaw. I researched the passes we'd cross to see when the temperatures would be above freezing so that we could leave at an appropriate time. It worked out great.
We have a bit better attitude about the drive this morning, because we are excited to see more of Montana. The more we drove, the more we fell in love. Then we hit Butte and wanted to stop and stay forever. Absolutely beautiful. That entire drive through western Montana was definitely the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen. To top it off, the sunset lasted for hours because we were chasing the sun. I will also say that the time zone changes were a blessing because it gave us an extra hour of rest those nights.
On this day, we made it to Spokane. By the time we hit Idaho, we started noticing the arid atmosphere disappearing. The cold started to feel actually cold. Bummer!
Saturday, January 15, 2022
It's the final push to Seattle! But wait, weather reports are showing icy roadways, dense fog and freezing fog along the way. We delay our departure a couple of hours, which helps give time for things to warm up a bit. Plus it puts us in Snoqualmie Pass at about 3:30pm, the warmest part of the day. We slipped right through without any trouble. Whew!
We arrived at our daughter's apartment in downtown Seattle and unloaded the vehicles. Nora (the dumb one, according to my daughter) warmed up quickly. Olive took a little longer but was opening up a bit by the next morning.
Sunday, January 16, 2022
We hang around to help out with miscellaneous stuff.
Monday, January 17, 2022
Time to go home! Along the way, now that we don't have animals or weather challenges to worry about, we stop for a quick visit with @radar, always a pleasure.
We dropped off the rental car at Alamo PDX and a friend picked us up for the final leg home.
FWIW, we rented a Hyundai Santa Fe and it was amazing. Super easy to drive, nice ride, comfortable seating and tons of space. The cruise control was fantastic -- I could set it to a speed slightly faster than my daughter's speed (she led the way most times) and the car would automatically maintain a safe distance and the exact same speed as her. Lots of great creature comfort features.
Great synopsis and happy everything turned out fine. Just a quick question about an apparent ommision concerning my kin, "and the baboons are enjoying their own rental car" I'll bet that you will be hearing from the rental car's legal department soon unless the baboons made it into Canada looking for bc bud. ?????ÿ
Yeah, we lost track of the baboons somewhere around Sioux Falls. Last I saw them, they were headed north with a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon after stopping with us at a travel center.?ÿ
@wendell?ÿ
Aren't children just the best things ever!!!. We love 'em, we hate 'em, and love 'em again. Regardless of how much we have to fork out for rent, electrical, CATV, ad nausem "deposits" for their new residence only to have them repeat the process six months later. I'm tellin' ya from experience they are lifelong financial parasites. ?????ÿ
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@wendell?ÿ
Glad to hear that you, Angel and most of the critters made the journey safely. Don't worry 'bout them baboons too much, they can probably handle themselves, just like Clyde did.?ÿ
The cats are hovering...
Think they are glad we're home. ?????ÿ
I go to get coffee and he hops up onto the stove and hovers.
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