Going Home

It was snowing when we woke. The temperature hovered around 38 degrees. It snowed, it rained, it decided to keep snowing. The valley was covered periodically by drifting fog. Like the snow, it came and went, not ever really choosing what it was going to do. We saw no more elk, and we were sad. For us, our wilderness highlights were the herd of elk on Saturday morning, the five white-tailed deer by the road on Thursday, and the beautiful bald eagle taking off right next to our car on the Yaak River Road. We had to forgo today's photo adventure. The roads would be too slippery in the Prius. Maybe we should have gotten the big old Ford F-150 pickup from the rental place instead. But the Prius was a sweetheart of a car and a new driving experience for us. Somewhere you had read that next to the Corvette, the Prius has the highest owner satisfaction and loyalty of any other car. We 'get it' now.

We left the house at about 11:15. We stopped by the recycling and trash center, dumped everything, and learned we were supposed to separate out the aluminum cans from all the rest. The fellow there was just as friendly as so many other people we have met in the valley. We drove on down to the Bread Basket for lunch and then on down towards Spokane. The weather was tough the entire way. My eyes got tired of trying to watch all the snow, rain, other drivers and water spraying up all the time. The roads aren't striated like California freeways and water is constantly spraying up from rear tires of the cars in front of you. I was glad when we finally got to Post Falls and had our mandatory Cabela's stop. I text-messaged a friend that I was at Cabela's who wrote back and asked me why, did I need a shotgun?

We had time to spare but it made for a very long day. We were able to make our fast connection in San Francisco but unfortunately our luggage didn't. We spent an hour waiting for it and filling out the paperwork for them to deliver it in the morning. We got home a little after 11:00 p.m. Steve was beside himself with joy.