Here we are in Nampa … arrived at 1700 local. It was only an 8.5 hour drive. Coming out of Ely, Nevada wasn’t a problem, even though it snowed all night and the temperature plummeted to -17. That’s what it was when we got up at 0600 this morning. While we were eating our breakfast at the hotel, this is what it looked like out back:

The drive to Nampa was uneventful except for the part where Jim drove from Ely to some point north where there was no snow. The road was packed snow, ice, sand, and salt during his stint at the wheel and he really messed up the car, bad.

The windshield washer wouldn’t work so when southbound trucks passed us things got dicey because using the wipers only smeared the mud around, making it very difficult to see the highway and oncoming vehicles. We decided to quit using the wipers after stopping and trying to clean it off with water that froze immediately. It was -16 or so at the time, so it was no surprise.

After cranking up the defroster as high as we could, it melted enough so we could scrape it off with one of the card keys we stole from the Ely La Quinta Inn. Fortunately we had two of them so Jim and I doubled up to get it done quickly. That worked well until we stopped at a small store and purchased some window cleaner and got all the windows cleaned off for Diane to drive. She drove to Twin Falls then I took over and took us the remainder of the way to Nampa. My portion of the trip was the smoothest, of course. And the car was clean. This is what it looked like when I parked in Jim’s driveway:

Now, about the clean car … in Twin Falls we got gas and it came with a free car wash, so we got one and it was awesome. I wasn’t ashamed to drive the car.

The roads were clear all the way to Nampa.

About the time we sat down for dinner, Steffani, Daniel, Tyler, Maryssa, Bob, and Cass showed up so everyone had to stop eating so we could hug everyone. Cass wouldn’t hug me and that’s probably OK because I don’t know who she is. Gotta change that … she’s a U of I Vandal studying to be a Veterinarian.

Now I’m going to quit and visit.