Seven Thousand Feet of Snow

March 9th was the first day of travel for the ENTIRE Steiner family. Our team was missing mom during the first ten hour drive from Seattle to Boise on March 6th. No mom meant fewer rules and the ride was choatic with kids hopping seats, trading seats, not sitting, and generally wandering about. Not that Dad can't discipline, he was just driving five hundred miles and yelling over his shoulder didn't make much of a difference. March 9th became the re-start, akin to the Iditarod beginning in Anchorage, but really starting down the trail in Willow. We were packed, enthused and generally happy.

Our entire first day was COLD! Right outside of Boise it was about 35 degrees and 40 mile/hr. wind. The drive started with schoolwork. This was day two of daily schoolwork and I have to say the girls did excellent. Great attitudes and everything was finished in an hour. One boy developed a headache and fever and his work spanned a four hour window. Homework done, fever and headache gone. Huh? Go figure. And the other boy just plotted along in protest. Lots of protests. The major excitement for the kids was tumbleweeds. They kept hitting the RV and the kids were screaming like they were on a ride! They had apparently never seen them before.

We got into Salt Lake City around 5pm and the torrential rain started. A couple laps around the Mormon temple (Holly was curious) and an amazing sight of the state capital (the most beautiful one Holly had ever seen!) was enough of Salt Lake for us.
And so after nine hours, pictures of the mormon temple, a primer on the mormon religion, one near collision creating by turning right without a turn signal, a stop at In and Out Burger, Walmart and Kinkos, Holly and I decided to push on past Provo to Price, Utah. The clock read nine PM, and Price was only 60 miles away. Sixty miles, two and one half hours, and one snowstorm away.
As soon as we left I-84 and began down Route 6 we knew we were changing scenes. We were one of five cars for about five minutes, and street lights and homes faded away. Cruising at 55 the first constructions signs appeared just as the first snow began to drift. Soon we found ourselves on a rough road with sharp, unannounced curves and snow obscuring our vision. The snow was getting thicker, the elevation higher and our speed slower. We were now creeping down the road at thirty. We were only ten minutes from the interstate when Holly suggested we think of going back. Of course I knew she wasn't serious and was just offering moral support to my awesome vision and driving skills. It was reverse psychology at work. And I'd need it since the white lines marking the right side of the road were not only difficult to see, they weren't always there. We trekked on. A car began tailgating me. A mile and a half down the road and I discovered that I had two lanes available to me, and I was using both. I moved into the right lane and he sped by in the passing lane. My pride wasn't hurt for long. I soon passed a newer Pontiac Firebird driving twenty miles per hour to my raging thirty. Traffic coming toward us increased as we ascended. Did you know the iPhone map has a really cool setting we weren't using? You can use it to 'satellite' or 'hybrid' before you ascend a mountain pass and actually KNOW you're about to be going over mountains. We figured this out at the summit! We drove up, and up, and big semi-rig scary vehicles would come down and down and down. Eventually Holly downloaded an App to her iPhone that showed elevation. We were five thousand feet and climbing. The ride got fun again. How high would we go? Six thousand, seven thousand? At six thousand feet the weather improved and the two lane road of fear turned into a four lane comfortable mountain road. What we could see around us was spectacular. And we continued to ascend until we made the summit. Seven thousand four hundred seventy seven feet. We'd made it just over 1/2 way to price in two hours. We stopped for a photo, began our descent and began thinking of the future. Like, where were we going to camp that night. An hour later, Walmart became our first campground. Anticlamatic and practical. It worked great! And now on to the next great adventure...