We are home safe and sound from our adventures in Idaho and Utah. We figured we spent over 40 hours in the car during the last 6 days. Many of them on snow and ice covered roads. We are glad to be home safely and grateful for the time we could spend with family.
I posted about our adventure of getting to Idaho over on Your Homebased Mom but I'm going to repost it here for posterity's sake and then I'll share some more fun adventures we had while gone!!.
This was written on Tuesday night, the first night of our
Great Thanksgiving Adventure
I have to say I consider myself a pretty grateful person. I strive to look for the pretty and delicious in life and be grateful for the things I have.
The last few days have put my gratitude attitude to the test.
As we lay safe and sound in a nice warm bed last night my husband turned to me and said, "Despite everything that has happened in the last two days we have a lot to be grateful for." Although I really didn't want to admit it, I wanted to complain a little bit more, he is right.
We left Portland headed to Idaho Falls late Tuesday morning. School was canceled because of snow so we decided we'd wait for traffic to clear and head out of town. Of course because of the snow it was slow going. We were doing fine until we hit The Dalles where we came to a complete standstill. We continued to sit there for TWO hours. I am not a good sitter.
It was a beautiful sunny day though and all the freshly fallen snow was quite pretty. I got out of the car to take some photos along the highway (no worries, there was not a car moving for miles!!)
I am
grateful that I was not in the truck that was jack knifed in the middle the road and I am
grateful for pretty snow.
I am also
grateful for a car that has a good heater that kept us warm as we sat waiting for two hours!! I am grateful for
Harry Potter that kept us entertained for the many hours we spent in the car!
What should have been a 6 hour drive to Ontario, Oregon turned into almost twice that. But I was
grateful to arrive safely at our hotel and sleep! The next morning we headed out again (4 degrees) and I was
grateful for this beautiful sunrise we got to watch over the snowy plains of Idaho.
The roads were a little snowy and icy but we were doing great until we hit Twin Falls when our car lost power. Jim got it over to the side of the road and called our mechanic in Portland. The car started up again but the warning lights told us it was URGENT to get service. Thanks to Google we found a repair shop in Twin Falls that was open that worked on Volvos. We were
grateful it was only a few miles away and our car made it there!
The mechanics were headed out to lunch and wouldn't be able to look at it for a few hours. I was a little ungrateful but we decided to have lunch at the same place they were going. My husband who has a better
gratitude attitude than I do bought the mechanics their lunch.
We went to Sherm.
This is Sherms, I am sure he is or was a nice guy.
He has the biggest chicken fingers I have ever seen! We knew we were in Idaho when they brought fry sauce with the french fries!!
I am grateful for the nice warm lobby we could sit in at the car repair place while they checked out our car. We are
grateful for a DVD player and Sense & Sensibility too.
And check out the cool counter they have.
We got the "good" news that the repairs would be about $1,200 and they couldn't get the part until Friday because the road was closed from there to Salt Lake City. We were
grateful that the airport was only a few milse away and we could rent a car to take us the rest of the way to Idaho Falls.
The roads were clear until about Blackfoot where we hit alot of ice. I am
grateful I was not in the car just ahead of us that slid off the road flipped on it's top! I am
grateful we arrived safe and sound at Grandma's house and she had a nice warm dinner waiting for us. I am
grateful my 3 kids arrived safely in Idaho from Utah.
Like my husband said, we have a lot to be
grateful for.
I am
grateful.
What are you
grateful for today?
