Four photos from the California trip

Heading South on I-15 in Utah. I'd kind of missed these 100 mile views as I saw them again while driving through this and our old high desert areas of California. It was still cool here but I got to our old area as I went through San Bernardino at the height of a heatwave with temps in the 90's!
All the traffic and congestion of being back in that area for the first time in over 3 years made me glad it was just a visit!
I only wished I hadn't been on such a tight time schedule and had a day free to visit with people I hadn't seen in person in almost 5 years!

I was so surprised to see Primm (or Stateline Nevada) so deserted! This photo of Whiskey Pete's all but empty, it used to never be this empty, any day of the week! The Hotel is closed except for weekends anymore, only open for gambling and the McDonald's inside was the only 'restaurant' open! I'd gone there first to get a room on the way down to San Diego. I Guess most people just drive the 40 minutes more and just go straight to Las Vegas instead of stopping here anymore. Too bad to.

Now all the way back in Montana, a rest stop a little South of Butte on the I-15. No new snow from the day before but a lot of ice on the highway! On the Idaho side there had been mainly sand and dirt for spread for traction by the snow plow trucks, on the Montana side they'd used the liquid de-ice material. In spots in the passes it had refrozen making some really long black ice patches!
Last Photo is from the same spot looking Northerly. Up over the rise and too the right would be Butte. The I-90 interchange with the 15 is a couple of miles West of town, and from that interchange it was about 7 hours to home.

Comments

2021, the long hot summer of our discontent!

Yes, it was one long HOT summer! In addition to the record-breaking heat along the coastal ranges in Oregon, Washington, and into Canada, we saw temperatures in this Northern Idaho area I NEVER thought we would see again after moving away from the high desert of Southern California in 2006! The hottest temp was an afternoon high of 112 degrees (44.44 C) on June 30th. But, hot, hot days, too warm evenings, no rain so dusty and dry. Record heat, the hottest weather ever recorded in Idaho, and, according to the stories, only the beginning of the heat that will probably be the "new normal" from this point on. Seems that the same "high-pressure bubble" that causes the cold and snow of winter weather to almost completely bypass our region of the pacific northwest in winter causes record heat in our same region of the pacific northwest in the summer! Since my last post, mainly, we have just been living and trying to avoid getting Covid. Stacy and I got our vaccinations...

So, Winter Decided It Wasn't Done Quite Yet Around Here!

After last weeks post of me talking about the somewhat short winter so far, it got cold! I mean really cold over the weekend, like two mornings with the lows of +8 (-13C) and +9 (-12C) and 'highs' around 25 (-3C). No one I had talked with thought it would be that THAT cold again this season! Then last night, 02/13/18, there had been a "Winter Storm Watch" issued for the time period of 10 PM Tuesday to 12 noon Wednesday for "up to" 11 inches of snow. Luckily, we didn't get anything near that with about 4 inches overnight and the snow stopped around 10 am and warmed into the mid-30s during the day so what had fallen had begun to melt, clearing off the roads and walkways but staying on the grass. However, for its last blast, we still could get a few more inches of accumulation between now and next Sunday the 18th. Then, the long-term forecast has the daytime temps going back into the mid to upper 30s again in about a week. We'll see! On Monday t...

I can't say I'm on a roll just yet, but here's a new post!

So, to continue with last weeks story. In August, Stacy finally got the trailer she's been wanting all along. Yes, while I like the larger, around 28 to 30 foot or so, RVs, Stacy has kept the idea that smaller is better. Smaller can go pretty much anyplace you'd want to camp and our 5th wheel, at 34-feet long, while it can go most places, it can't go 'anyplace' due to the length. When we got the 5th wheel in July 2017, I was surprised Stacy was willing and even suggested, we go for it trading in our 33-foot travel trailer to get the Jayco. Again, the "Wildcat Maxx" was a nice travel trailer. It had made several short and two long trips in the almost two years we'd owned it. We lucked out as in an era of the rapid assembly to make the crazy sales numbers the RV industry has been having, the Wildcat was "completed on a Wednesday by happy Amish at the factory" as we didn't have any of the build issues I still read about from the appar...

Our updates for all of you

Search This Blog