This Must Have Been Our Lucky Day

We left Catfish Junction this morning with beautiful clear fall weather. We will go back, we like that spot. We headed east into Idaho via route I-84. The traffic was light, the weather was clear and sunny and we were enjoying the scenery. What could be wrong with this picture? About 14 miles from Boise in the middle of a serious construction zone with barriers, narrow lanes and congested traffic we were passed by a pickup with the driver beeping his horn and pointing at our rig. This was a clear sign to pull off now and we did. I pulled as far off the steeply sloped shoulder as I dared and got out walking around the RV wondering what I would find. Well, I only found three tires on the Jeep! We had a blowout and didn't feel a thing. ALL the tread was missing and we are hoping we did not ruin the rim. A few silent expletives and then I pulled the RV even further off the highway as I was sure someone was going to run over my sorry butt once I started to change the tire. The slope was so steep Anne had difficulty walking the aisle of the motor home and I was thinking a good stiff wind would blow it over. After listening to the roar of the traffic and watching how close they were I decided to call AAA and let them change the tire. And they did! We were there waiting for almost an hour before the repair truck arrived and it took less than 10 minutes to have the spare mounted and get us back on the road. We have wondered where all the tire carcasses come from on the highway. We now know personally where one of them originated.

We encountered lots of snow in Southern Idaho. The Sawtooth Mountains were covered as were the fields on both sides of the freeway. There were some piles showing where plows had recently been hard at work. It is only October 14th! We made it into Utah where we are spending the night at a truck stop. Hopefully the trucks parked closest to us won't idle their engines all night. While having dinner at the local diner we learned that the Interstate had been closed from 10:00 PM Saturday to 7:00 PM Sunday due to snow! Evidently some of the area we had passed through had received as much as 2' in a very short period. It is cold enough that two days later the snow persists, the sun has not prevailed to melt it away. We are happy to be headed for warmer climes. We think the forecast will get us home before the next rogue storm.