Life on the Road at 31 Degrees



A cabin at the Lodge at Suttle Lake



Snow on the Roof of the Suttle Lake Lodge



Yes, it's me complaining again. I was going to name this post "Welcome Back Yogi".... If you read the earlier post when I was describing repeat patterns, you would understand. However after a couple of thousand miles of glancing down at the outside temperature guage on our dashboard to see 31, I decided to use this name. There's nothing inherantly wrong with 31 degrees, except when there is moisture involved and you are on the road. Here I slipped in a couple of pictures of the Snow at Suttle Lake Lodge that I left out of earlier posts, then starting in the Oregon Cascades where we first encountered 31 degrees and lower and ending in St. Joseph, Missouri where we seem to have left that number, there are images of the beauty of freezing rain and fog when you're not driving.



Out our window at Suttle Lake Lodge



Although we dealt with that off and on through the mountains, I had such a feeling of relief as we passed Laramie because that meant we weren't going to get stuck in the mountains by deep snow again. That was also when we realized that coming up out of Laramie, we were surrounded by pine and cedar trees. We hadn't seen that since the Cascades. All that space. Then we passed by Cheyenne and were commenting on the nearby clouds covering the rock formations. All of a sudden the temperature dropped and we were in those clouds. Time to back off the 75 mph. Again, it was beautiful, but not fun to drive in. Sorry; no pictures.



Georgia in the Cascade snow.



Seems that in North Platte, Nebraska, there was a meeting of 3 forces. The wet storm coming up from the south. The cold blast from the northwest. And us!. All across Nebraska (See the post about our trip out across Nebraska.)  it was pretty much the same. The roads became clear after about 100 miles, but that ominous number 31 hung in there and the windshield was waffling between needing the wipers to needing the defroster. You felt like you could go ahead and drive on, but at 31 degrees, you knew there could be ice patches at any point. There were several cars and trucks along the road to attest to this fact. At Lincoln, we left the "old route" that we had used so often and thanks to Garmen and Mapquest, found a shorter route through Springfield, Illinois by dropping down to St. Joseph, Missouri and taking the divided 4 lane (non interstate) 36 across Missouri to Hannibal. Garmen showed me this coming home last summer, rather than going through St. Louis as I traveled from Denver on I-70. Although the temperature rose a little, we did experience a little of the only kind of precipitation we had missed to this point; hail. Not a lot, but just enough to know it was there, and raise our BP a bit. As we make the last leg of the trip home today, the temperature promised to be in the high 30's and low 40's. That will be such a relief, although it looks like another day of rain.. But in this case, wet rain, not freezing rain. Relief at last????

 





A native waiting to cross in Eastern Oregon



Beauty in central Nebraska