Maybe it's better to say, we are happy about leaving the impending winter that is tapping at the back-door, this makes us very happy; but we'll miss our families and friends. Our departure is about a week later this year, and I think we are just leaving in the nick of time, snow has been reported in a few areas around Alberta, and the wind has just been brutally cold. For a few days when out walking the pups, I was feeling rather wimpy, so out comes the big white parka, giving me the resemblance very much akin to that of the Michlin tire man, which was OK, there is no dress code when a person is cold.
As we approached the border crossing at Coutts, there was a huge amount of trucks, fortunately we didn't have to get in their line-up. Something I never noticed before is all the trucks had to drive through a large shed with a scanner. The US border folks weren't interested in us, they even told us we could keep our banana.
Thursay, November 3
Thursay, November 3
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| typical Montana scenery |
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| Montana Highway 1-15 |
We haven't been able to warm up at all since leaving home. A very cold bitter wind has been blowing ever since we left, we were in hope that would change, unfortunately - not so. In yesterday's travel there was a lot of snow in the lower areas besides the mountains. Even parts of the highway had snow, the creeks have ice buildup along the banks, on some the ice layer covered the entire creek. We stayed over night just outside of Butte last night.
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| It's cold out there! |
The girls didn't seem to mind, their coat is thick so the wind and cold hasn't slowed them one bit. So far they have taken the traveling right in stride. I'm so glad that we kennel trained them for the night time sleeping, there is just no fuss and no 'surprises' in the morning. When its lights out time, you just tell them to get in their house and they get their night time treat and that's it! They are so funny, they even have a preference as to which kennel they sleep, Emma is always in the kennel to Bella's right. While driving through Idaho we saw a cattle drive, it looked very chilly. There was a few hundred head being herded down the trail, which sounds so much more alluring than just to say a service road. 
Friday, November 4th
We got away at a decent time from McCammon RV. It was nicer than the past few mornings, unfortunately not nice enough. The water hose froze, Paul didn't think it would get that cold, good thing there was a hair dryer in my arsenal of goodies. Wasn't too long before everything was thawed out and put away. The trip through the Salt Lake City corridor is massive and takes about 1 1/2 to 2 hrs to get through depending on what you are driving. From my perspective, most of Utah's population base resides in the various city's/towns sprinkled mostly on the west side of the freeway. In the four years that we have been driving south, it has always been under construction, mind you it is now mostly at the south end. A lot of this is 7 lanes. If you were counting north and south it would be 14 lanes with dedicated toll lanes. The one thing to remember, never travel in the far right lane for you will definitely get caught in an exit lane - with the volume of traffic and fast pace you could be in a bad situation that is not easily resolved. The wind is just pain nasty today, not as cold, but nonetheless outright nasty. It has to be very tiring for Paul. Won't be long and we'll call it a day.
Saturday, November 5th
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| Get lots of looks when triple towing. |
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| Cedar City, Utah |
Good morning sunshine...wait that bright shiny stuff is snow - we are surrounded by snow and there's a lot, well it seems like a lot. When Paul got on top of the motor home to clean off the snow the girls were beside themselves. This is the first time I have ever seen them tremble, I thought they were going to have a heart attack. It took a good part of the morning for them to settle down and not go into high alert with any unusual noise. The good news – it wasn't that cold – as well, we didn't have far to travel to get out of the snow. Within 15 minutes the elevation had changed enough there were only traces of snow and in another 15 minutes the pavement was dry - YEAH!!!
Today we drove through three states: Nevada, Arizona and California. Destination point today is Needles, California. Then it will be a quick trip into Yuma on Sunday. We sailed through Vegas without incident, a lot of people don’t like to drive through Las Vegas, and it was a bummer the first year we drove down due to endless construction on the freeway. Now the construction is pretty much complete, it is so straight forward and fast. We did try a couple other ways that people suggested, to see if alternate routes were any better, but in my humble opinion they weren’t.
Sunday, November 6th
We arrived in Needles as planned Saturday afternoon, it seemed like a treat!!! We have driven the entire trip down without disconnecting once. Triple towed the entire trip. Every place we stayed on way down, the RV parks were able to accommodate the length of the motorhome, jeep and cargo trailer. This was a total bonus. We left Needles bright and early, and arrived in Yuma around 1:00 pm. This concludes our journey south. We'll be busy setting things set back up, once it is done we will enjoy the sunshine and warmth for 5 months and head home in the spring.
Until next time....
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