I’m just back from Idaho, again. We flew out to Spokane (WA), where our truck waiting in the parking lot where we’d left it last trip. Thank goodness long term parking at the airport there is a lot cheaper than it is here. Our drive over to the condo was uneventful, though we made a strategic error in stopping for a sit-down dinner on the way, which meant the 3-hour time difference was really getting to me by the time we arrived, and I crashed into bed as soon as I could.

We spent the rest of the week dividing our time between skiing and doing projects at the condo. There was not as much snow as we’d hoped for, though what was there was holding up nicely, as we’ve come to expect from Schweitzer. I’m happy to report that there was no rain this trip, unlike last time, and we got one decent powder day. On the condo front, we picked up and set up the headboard we’d ordered in January and hung the two posters we’d dropped off to be framed on that same trip. I also finished the curtains for the master bedroom closet, and Mr. Karen made great progress on the stair railing. All too soon, it was time to get into the truck and head home.

We allowed three full days to do the drive, which still didn’t seem like quite enough to me, maybe because we got a bit of a late start that first day or because I’d neglected to factor in how we’d lose an hour a day to time zone changes. The highlight of the first day (722 miles) was the herd of deer crossing the freeway somewhere in Montana while Mr. Karen was driving—he managed to stop before hitting the straggler who was standing in the middle of the road. The second day (805 miles) featured blowing snow in North Dakota; we saw several vehicles (mostly semi trucks) off the road, and the really scary part was when plows working on the other side of the freeway would throw snow across the median and my travel lane, causing temporary whiteouts during which visibility went from poor to none and I gripped the wheel and imagined Robert Duvall telling me “you can drive through it”. On day three (626 miles), we were blessed with clear weather, even around Lake Michigan, and made it home to find more snow in the driveway than had fallen on the slopes all week in Idaho. Really funny, universe.

All the pictures are here. There are far more hand dryers and far fewer mountains than one might expect to see in a ski trip set.