At last, at last it's time to write in the Turtle journal. We started our trip the day before yesterday (Feb. 13) by catching the 10:15 ferry out of Duke Point. All went smoothly. We used the truck route to the border, got a friendly border guard who heard we would be stopping in Texas and brightened right up. "You ever been to Austin, Texas?" he smiled. I told him I have a sister there and he let us right through. Heh™. Friends in high places.

We spent the night at the KOA campground in Yakima, which (Yakima) is much drearier a place than I remembered. Never mind. A good night's sleep was had by all. Yesterday we drove on to Caldwell, Idaho - just a few miles short of Boise. It was mighty nippy when we stopped, but this morning's weather report still came as a shock. Boise was in the grip, it seemed, of a blizzard. R composed a Plan B that would take us on a more westerly route than I93, but when we got out onto the highway and saw that none of the oncoming traffic was snow-covered, he reverted to Plan A, which he soon regretted. We found ourselves crawling along, stopping, crawling a bit more, through blowing snow - but there was no snow on the highway itself. Once we got past Boise, the traffic cleared right up, so I guess we were involved in a combination of weather-related and rush hour traffic.

So there we went, south on I-93, through blowing snow, battling fierce crosswinds, until we got here at about 4 pm. "Here" is Ely, Nevada, 6000 feet + in elevation, cold as the proverbial. We decided that the situation called for a hotel room, so we're at the Prospector Hotel & Casino for the night. The manager has allowed us to hook the Turtle up to electricity so it won't freeze tonight, but we're going to cower in our room and hope the nasty weather blows over by morning. We have to go up another 1000 or more feet before we start descending, so I certainly hope all the snow is gone in the morning.

While we're here, I'll catch up on the Den and see if I can talk to my kids. I noticed as I walked to this room that there's a hot tub, which has to be a good thing.