To the land of palm trees and warm sunshine

We didn't leave Kalispell, Montana until Thursday morning.

We climbed into the uhaul with frosty-cold toes on a 15-degree morning, heavily overcast with light snow flurries.

When Odie wasn't attentively watching the road...

She was laying with her head either on Steven's lap or mine!
Thank goodness the cab is very roomy!
Odie isn't a "pocket pooch" by any stretch of the imagination!


There's a piece of Flathead Lake.
It's a huge lake, something like 30 miles north-to-south.
Okay, some of you who live on near the Great Lakes, don't dispute my size description!


Coming down a long hill just north of Polson, Montana


Crossing the bridge into Polson.
Nothing of note about Polson. It's between Kalispell and Missoula.
I just want to sit in the warm sunshine down south and look back
at these snowy pictures!

Our first lunch in the uhaul!

Ham and cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate.

At a rest area about 20 miles east of Missoula.

Of course, minutes later he had lots of offers to help finish his sandwich!

South of Butte, Montana

First dinner in the uhaul, at a rest area between Idaho Falls and Blackfoot, Idaho.

Mountain House dehydrated beef stew. Leftover biscuits from home, cut open and fried in butter to thaw them out, since they froze in the uhaul!

The temperature was in the 20s while we cooked and ate.

When we woke up the next morning it was 8 degrees outside and 24 in the uhaul.

Thanks to a brillian suggestion from a friend, who's screen name is "The Blob", we didn't lose any of the plants, potatoes, or pop.

He suggested we could put a blanket up like a curtain to keep our body heat in the bed loft.

Thankfully, we had the staple gun and box of staples...and I was able to find them!

I stapled this red fleece blanket along the ceiling. In this picture I'm looking from propped up on my pillows. At the foot of the bed, on the left, is the box of plants. The white plastic bag behind and left of the lantern is the pepper plant, covered to keep in some of it's heat.

The four cases of pop are in the middle. I put the gallon jug of water on top, and the dozen eggs in a bag to it's right.

On the right, the green canvas bag and the white bucket under it are full of potatoes.

Against the wall on the far right is a case of Lipton green tea in bottles.

(Blue thing is bean-bag chair, tossed up there that morning)

I don't know how warm it was in there, but nothing froze. Although some of the leaves on the pepper plant got roughed up a bit being covered, they didn't freeze.

I pushed everything together in the middle of the bed after we got up, and insulated it with blankets and the two bean-bag chairs.

Near Pocatello, Idaho

Southern Idaho. The wind makes cool swirls on the snow.

None of that are tracks. It's all from the wind.

During a break in the traffic I snapped a picture of Salt Lake City while I was driving.

This is impressive, that I drove this rig through this traffic, for a gal who lives near the end of a one-lane dirt road and who doesn't ride in a car more than a couple times a month, in normal times. I don't even SEE other cars besides ours and the neighbor's behind us, for weeks!

There's about a 100-mile stretch of "urban" area and heavy traffic,

from Ogden, Utah, through Salt Lake City, and down through Provo, Utah.

Steven checks the straps on the trailer.

Beaver, Uah

2/3 of the way down the state.