The final stage

Sorry I didn't get around to posting yesterday. It was a very long day, and I ended up in Portland and had arranged a little visit with my lovely daughter and her equally delightful husband. Boy, since I last posted a lot has happened, and I took a lot of pictures, some of which I will add to this post. I think I will have to get a on line picture repository so I can just post all the pictures there and put a link here. I ended up in Missoula MT on Wed night. Very pretty place. The ride from South Dakota to there was amazing as well. Lots of high plains type landscape and then the mountains full of snow appearing on the horizon. Went past Sturgis early in the morning, and someone left the light on. It has been about 7 years since I was last there, and it has grown a lot. Had a pretty much uneventful night there in Missoula, but woke up to rain in the morning, which after about 30 min of climbing into the mountains turned to snow. It snowed for pretty much 3 hours. I do not like driving in the snow in the dark. After the initial thrill of it looking like a space warp drive trip with the stars flying past you, it gets old and distracting. The snow got so bad that at the highest point, there were snow plows out and we were down to 25 mph. I think we got through just in time and later might have had to chain up. Glad I missed that. Here are some really bad pics of the early morning snow storm. The pictures are coming out all out of order, and frankly, I am too tired to try and figure it out, so deal with it. :-) Finally managed to get out of the snow and into WA. Down through Spokane and west through the Snoqualami (sp)pass. Still lots of snow there too. More pics, but you won't know which is which. After leaving Spokane, I came up a pretty good hill, and just before dropping down, got a great view of the Columbia river. Everybody talks about the Mississippi, but I believe this river puts it to shame. What a mighty river, and a beautiful view. Finally got into Puyallup WA, which is just outside Seattle and where our terminal is. Dropped my trailer and was assigned another trailer headed for Riverside. One slight inclusion. 3 drop offs in Oregon. So, I had to deliver some sofas, recliners and chairs to some stores there. Which is not a big deal, I get paid for every drop, but I am anxious to get home. So that added pretty much another day. But got that done, and am sitting in Corning Ca as I write. Oh, just one thing I did want to mention, other than what a great time I had with my daughter and hubby. Thanks you guys for lifting my spirits and having a great dinner with me. It was so good to see you, and I am hoping for many more such nights. On the way south from Portland, I saw 5 or 6 large flocks of ducks, or geese flying in formations. There must have been a hundred or more in all of them combined. It amazes me, that they can fly so long, and so fast. They were going at least 50 mph, and as you may know, ducks and geese don't glide. They flap their wings constantly. I don't know what their limit is, but they have unbelievable stamina. I wish I had a tenth of that kind of stamina. Well, it is getting late, and I am about to fall out of my sleeper. So with that, I will say good night. I hope to see some of you tomorrow night. The rest, take care and I will begin a new adventure sometime next week. Until then, you will have to put up with my boring reports from home. LOL.

Larry