Greetings from Bend, OR! We arrived around 7pm on Wednesday evening and have been settling in ever since. I am the only one home right now as Dan & Amy are out Christmas shopping. The dogs and I are awaiting the delivery of our new couch. Finally something to sit on beside the 3 folding chairs we brought with us!
The cross country trip was exhausting and we are still trying to recover. Dan caught a cold but Amy and I stayed healthy. We tried to out run the snow storms but didn't quite succeed. The snow started in Ohio and we went to sleep in Sandusky OH thinking we may have to stay thru till it cleared but we pushed on and it was very slow going thru IN - lots of cars off the road and a very bad accident stopped us for an hour - Dan, Amy & the dogs walked on the median of I-80 for fun while I tried to reach my niece, Jen, who lives in Chicago. We had hoped to meet her along the way to visit but it was not meant to be. We needed to reach DesMoines and the weather was really slowing us down. The snow cleared in IL and we made it to Des Moines. We were able to visit with Dan's brother, sister-in-law, niece and her husband for an hour the next day as they came to our hotel prior to taking off again. Through Iowa, Nebraska and over to Cheyenne WY. The weather was good through WY to Utah. WY was pretty desolate - almost like we were on the moon with an occasional power line and some cattle along the road. Utah was spectacular with the Wasatch(sp?) Mountains around Salt Lake City. This was our easy day and we were able to enjoy a real meal in a restaurant. It was snowing again when we started out the next morning and we knew we had to get an early start if we were going to reach Bend. It was a killer day. We started @ 7am and arrived here @ 7pm. Idaho was clear sailing but eastern OR was tough. There are a few mountain passes where it was snowing near the top then would transition to freezing rain then rain as we came down. I just kept my eyes on Dan's tail lights. We were soooo thankful to see the lights of Bend. The first thing we did when we were all in the house was to give thanks to God for a safe trip.
I'll try to post more later.
