VA-CA-VA... Again!

[StealthGTI]

I awoke nice and early because I wanted to beat the crowds to the Sequoias. My goal was to shoot the car with some Sequoias and to get a photo with the car/trailer in the fallen tree tunnel. The road had been marked "closed" on Google Maps, but appeared to be open now. I called the road conditions hotline: "Roads open," "Chains not required." I'm gone!

My hotel is at around 350 feet above sea level. The Sequoias are in the mountains. That was not a place to take a trailer without a full tank of fuel. I refueled about halfway there to avoid any surprises. Then came the entrance... all to myself...

It was a beautiful morning and about 45 degrees outside. The sun was up, but still behind the mountains. I shot a few scenic items as I climbed toward the Sequoias...

I think this formation is called Moro Rock, but I'm not sure...

Note: This area was VERY crowded when I descended later...

A higher view of Moro Rock...

There came a point when I noticed that temperatures were dropping. I started to notice around 4000 feet. It was near freezing at 5000 feet. I cannot recall if this first Sequoia was above or below 5000 feet. But this is when I started to see snow on the ground. The road was still clear. Look deeper into this photo and you'll see one of MANY 15-mph switchbacks on this road...

The car had plenty of traction and was pulling the trailer like a champ! I started to see light snow on the road as I approached 6000 feet. Still, the hotline said "Chains not required." So, I was cautiously optimistic that the snow was not going to get worse. I felt the first slip of my tires just above 6000 feet. I was only a few miles from the fallen tree tunnel. But it was beginning to look like I could go no further. There are plenty of pull-outs along the climb. I began to look for a place to turn around. I knew the ride was over when I saw this climb at a switchback...

I had just passed a pull-out to my left and was beside another. But it was too late. My traction went from "good" to "nothing" very quickly and I lost all forward momentum. The car slid backwards each time I eased out the clutch. I could not get to the pull-out that was just 20 feet to my left. I set the parking brake and got out to assess my situation. I was going to unhitch the trailer and get turned around.

Then something shocking happened: The two rear wheels that had been held by the parking brake were not enough to hold the car. The car began to slide down the mountain with me standing ouside! I quickly jumped inside and stood on the brake. I'm not sure how much farther I slid.. A foot? Two feet? More? The car did eventually stop sliding and came to rest like this...

This time, I turned off the engine and left the car in gear. Hopefully, four locked wheels would hold. It seemed to work! The trailer did not make contact with the car. So, I wanted to work quickly to separate them before things got worse, as if a disconnected and brakeless trailer on an icy mountain isn't a bad thing! The road appeared to have received some sleet or freezing rain that evening. There seemed to be tiny frozen bumps on the surface.

Personal background: I'm a believer in minimizing any negative impact that I might have on others. I make mistakes, but REALLY seek to avoid involving others in them. As I mentioned earlier, I was practically alone on this road. I wanted to clean up my mess before it could affect anyone else.

The back of the trailer was almost against the stone wall. The snow berm was giving me a buffer. My goal was to uncouple it from the car, push it back and away from the bumper, spin it around, and then move it downhill and away from the car so that I could move them each to safety... first, the car and then the trailer. I didn't take many photos because I was busy trying to save the car and trailer.

My technique involved spinning the trailer around and then "surfing it" down the hill a few feet at a time before shoving the tongue jack into the snow berm. This seemed to work well. The tongue weighed about 140 lbs. So, I wasn't lifting if off the ground, just sort of unweighting it to move it left or right. The tongue jack foot acted as sort of a ski. I would lift, pull right, "surf," and then push into the berm when the trailer picked-up a little speed... maybe a few inches per second. I managed to slide the trailer about 30-50 feet down the hill from the car, about 5-10 feet at a time. With some space between the car and trailer, I attempted to move the car over to the nearby pull-out. No luck! I could only slide. So, I set the parking brake, turned the steering wheel, and then let the front wheels spin gently. This action allowed me to pivot the car around to point downhill. From there, I drove to in front of the trailer to see if I could recouple. That didn't work. Here's the little "burnout" where I lost traction trying to back up...

As you can see, I kept the tongue pointing at the berm except for when I was "surfing." I then moved the car down to the next pull-out. So, here's the distance that I needed to move the trailer to reach the car and find some traction...

This photo shows all the skid marks from one stunt or another...

A park ranger came down the hill as I worked. I'm sure it looked much worse than actual when he saw my car facing downhill on the right side of the road and my trailer facing downhill on the left. It looked like I had lost my trailer. "Failure to secure" and "failure to chain" are no joke! I told him what happened and what I was doing. He approved of my plan and was impressed by my ambition. Not enough to help, which I don't blame him, but enough to loan me a set of these...

They made the work MUCH easier. He parked near a turn to provide warning to upcoming traffic, which was starting to pick-up...

I think about 10-15 cars drove by during the hour that I worked. All of them were 4x4 or AWD except for two. The first FWD got stuck, but was able to mount chains in a pull-out. The next one was able to get going with a small push from the ranger and me. After that, the ranger opted to have a truck come sand the road. He encouraged me to wait before attemping to couple the trailer. I was near a blind turn at this point. The trailer was visible, but moving it more may have been hazardous. While we waited, another FWD car got stuck with us. We were able to get her into my pull-out to await the sand truck. It was about 10 minutes away.

While we waited, the ranger encouraged me to leave the trailer in a pull-out and go see General Sherman Tree. "Really? I was going to call it a day. HAHA!" He insisted, "You can't come here all the way from Virginia and not see what may be the largest living thing in the world." He assured me that the trailer would be fine. The sand truck came by and laid sand (the park does not salt). The women waiting with me were on their way and I moved-in to couple my trailer.

I went down to the next pull-out and uncoupled the trailer, but I couldn't leave it there because it wanted to slide down the hill. So, I took it to a level pull-out below 6000 feet and was able to leave it. I found some rocks to chock the wheels.

General Sherman Tree is off-road and about 1/2-mile into the woods. So, no car photos with it. But I did manage to shoot a photo with this tiny tree...

General Sherman Tree is massive! It's neither the widest nor the tallest in the forest. But it carries the most girth farther up its trunk, which makes it the most massive tree in the world. I'll share photos of General Sherman later.

Thanks for hanging out through this nutty story!

 

[Treadup]

I would purchase a tall version of that last photo! “Tiny Tree” beautiful!!

 

[JC_451]

Amazing pictures man.

The jack knife on the hill and the sequoia are my favorites

 

[hotbascosauce]

Awesome story. Cross-country roadtrip is on my bucket list!

 

[jimlloyd40]

Scary stuff. You did a great job.

 

[Turbongr]

Christ....glad that worked out. You must have been freaked out when the car started rolling!

 

[StealthGTI]

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

I would purchase a tall version of that last photo! “Tiny Tree” beautiful!!

Thanks! I brought just a couple of lenses with me: my 24-70mm and 100-400mm zooms. I didn't consider that they were both too long to catch that tree. I should have brought a 10-14mm, too. Instead, I took this photo with my smartphone. I could not see the frame since I was shooting with it on the ground. I wish I had taken more shots to get more space above the tree. But it's still decent. I'll have to see if I can photoshop a version with more space at the top.

Amazing pictures man. The jack knife on the hill and the sequoia are my favorites

Thanks! Those two seem to endcap the "suffering" to the "reward."

Awesome story. Cross-country roadtrip is on my bucket list!

Road trips are good fun. Just avoid icy mountains!

Scary stuff. You did a great job.

Thanks! There may have been a fine line between "a great job" and a 1060-lb trailer careening down the hill, off the ledge, and into other cars. I'll carry-on as if I was an expert!

Christ....glad that worked out. You must have been freaked out when the car started rolling!

Yeah, there was a pucker factor, for sure.

I'll draft an update now. Back in a few...

 

[cb1111]

Sliding backwards with your foot solidly on the brake is an incredibly scary feeling.

You did good....

 

[PureWhiteMk7]

Blog-worthy thread. Great photos too.

 

[StealthGTI]

I didn't mention it above, but I didn't want to spend too much time away with my trailer sitting in a pull-out. I was paranoid about it being stolen or towed. It wasn't about the cost of replacing it. Instead, its disappearance would have put a huge dent in my timeline for getting my mother's stuff. Realistically, had anything happened to it there or elsewhere, I was prepared to just buy another trailer and get my mission completed. Still, the park ranger assured me that it would be fine. My first stop along my way farther up the mountain was to shoot the "tiny tree" in my previous update. From there, I went to the Fallen Tree Tunnel. There was no access. The plows cannot fit on that road. So, it goes unmaintained during the off-season. I could not enter, but I also saw a sign that prohibits trailers. That road would have been a bust for me, even if I was able to get there with a trailer. I could have hiked it and saw the tree. But shooting it without the car was not part of my plan. As a result, I didn't get any photos of the tree tunnel.

Because of the time-suck of dealing with my trailer fiasco, I also didn't have much time to see General Sherman Tree before having to descend the mountain to retrieve my wife at Fresno International Airport. I got to what the navi said was "General Sherman Tree," only to discover that the location was the "accessible" parking lot for disabled visitors. "Damn! Not there yet!" It was only two miles farther to the appropriate parking lot, but they were slow miles due to the snow and ice. I found a parking spot and started my hike, being on the look-out for how far I'd have to hike. I found a sign that said it was 0.4 miles. "Okay, that seems doable." I got to an overlook that showed the tree. It was a halfway point. Progress was slow because there's absolutely no snow removal on the trails. I did shoot the tree from there, but it's easily lost among the surrounding trees. Instead, I'll share this marker...

I considered bailing on the rest of the hike so that I'd get to Fresno on time. "What if the roads are the same and I can't return with my wife?" I kept on going, just in case this was my only chance to visit the tree. I snapped this photo of a fallen tree cross-section...

It's nearly impossible to photograph General Sherman Tree in its entirety, not with the lenses I had with me, anyway. This photo does not do justice for displaying its full size...

I took more photos, but I'll share them later. I began my hike back to the car. Ironically, I was able to see the parking lot for disabled visitors. DOH - That could have been a time-saver if I was a douche. HAHA! The return hike was all uphill and in the snow, just like my Dad's apparent walk to school as a kid! I'm out of shape. I could feel my heartbeat in my face! Something I didn't share yesterday: I filled a water bottle before leaving the hotel, but I didn't bring it to the car. So, all of the exercise that I was getting, both during the trailer's recovery and during this hike, were without water. I was thirsty enough in the morning. Now I'm feeling it more! I made my way back to my car and headed toward the trailer.

My tires had a few slips on the descent. They were brief and didn't seem too bad. But it was easy to notice that some sections of the road seemed very close to the edge of the mountain and lacked a guardrail to keep cars from going over. No worries: there are plenty of trees to stop cars from falling all the way! I descended to the area where I had been stuck. The ranger was right in saying that it would clear up soon after the sun began to hit the road. It still had patches of snow and ice, but was MUCH better at that point. I drove another half-mile and found the trailer. It's always nice to find things where I left them!

I coupled the trailer and began my race to Fresno. My offline navigator said that I'd reach the airport "just in time." But I knew that I still needed a fuel stop and a bottle of water. Could I minimize that stop to the point that I'd still beat my wife to the passenger pickup area? I stopped at a gas station in Three Rivers and went inside. I needed a restroom, but I couldn't find one. The attendant said there were no public restrooms. A small part of me understood his decision, not because of COVID, but because of the high volume of park traffic that likely blows through that small town, trashes his restrooms, and moves-on without giving him any business. Still, I'm not giving money to a store that won't let me use a restroom. I left without saying anything and stopped at the fuel station where I had fueled that morning.

With my tank full, my bladder empty, boots exchanged for sneakers, lunch, and two bottles of water with me, I continued on my way. I had reconnected with the Internet along the way. My phone blew-up with text and voice messages from my wife during her Dallas layover and my office. She told me about some difficulties during her trip. The office? Who cares? I'm on vacation! Unfortunately, my navi now said that I would be 20 minutes late. OOPS! I was sure my wife wanted to just get off the plane with her carry-on bag and walk out to a car with a friendly face. Instead, she was getting MY face and a late ride. I stopped in the "cellphone lot" and was surprised that I hadn't already heard from her. I looked up her flight information and learned that her plane was 30 minutes late. Instead of her waiting 20 minutes for me, I'd wait ten minutes for her... PERFECT! I picked her up, told her about my day, and we agreed to NOT visit the park that day. Instead, we returned to the hotel and made early dinner plans. We ate at a local pizzeria... good stuff!

The next day, we went to my mother's storage unit to unpack and see what was coming home with us. I nearly had a heart attack every time I heard my wife say, "Awww..." It seemed like a potential signal of each additional thing she'd want to load into the trailer. HAHA! I had made it clear that I was bringing home "just" 500 lbs, nothing more. Thankfully, many of the things that gave her moments of pause were also things that she was able to put back into their box and move on. Later, she said that it was 1:00pm and that she was hungry. "WOW! Has it been that long already?" We had leftover pizza in the car's refrigerator and took a lunch break. While eating, I took to my IG account and discovered that it WASN'T 1:00pm. Her FitBit was still on east coast time; it was only 10:00am. "Early lunch for us!" HAHA!

We continued our work. I taped a piece of paper to the trailer and listed the weights of each item she wanted to pack. The cedar chest was her main want. We weren't sure if Mom's desk would fit, but I was easy once the legs were off. Surprisingly, there were four short solid wood book cases that we decided to take home. There were other odds and ends that we boxed, as well as blankets and sweaters that could act as padding. Here's the list and weights.

Although the list says 365 lbs, there were a few oddball items that didn't get weighed, which were around 40 lbs combined. Given the 1060-lb weight that I measured when I left Virginia, that still left me below my 1500-lb weight limit at 1465 lbs. It gets better: With the fuel-scarce areas now behind me, I was free to dump about 30 lbs of fuel into the car. Also, I had removed some tools and odd items to make room in the Husky tub for Mom's fragile things. I didn't want to carry cargo in the car, but I wasn't going to die over one 40-lb box in the back seat. That left the trailer at ~1400 lbs. Next, I measured the trailer's tongue weight. It was 180 lbs, which was too heavy. I wanted it closer to 140. I shuffled a few things around in the trailer redistribute the weight and got the tongue weight to 160 lbs. It seemed heavier than ideal, but wasn't bad at 11.7% of the trailer's total weight. I called it a "win."

I was surprised that we had stuffed the trailer to the gills without exceeding its weight capacity!

I'm sure those freshly-painted walls will be a mess by the time I get home. But it's possible that it won't be too bad since there's not much room for things to shift around in there.

We still had more pizza in the hotel room. We ate and then made arrangements to visit my aunt and grandmother. I hadn't let them know that we were in town since we weren't sure how our weekend would look. If I'm honest, my wife easily could have toiled over every item in that storage unit. I was prepared to spend two days at that unit, with half of it spent napping in the car while she did HER thing. Thankfully, that didn't happen. We arranged to leave the loaded trailer at Grandma's place so that we could visit Sequoia National Park the following day (Sunday) without a loaded trailer in tow.

We arrived at the park entrance a bit later than my arrival on Friday. There was a crowd. I had already taken crowd-free photos of the things that interested me. So, our goal was to get up to General Sherman Tree, walk around, and then get out. The stretch of road where I had jackknifed the trailer was completely different this time...

The pull-out that's beside where I jackknifed...

The pull-out where I staged the car and the park ranger helped...

My wife noted that the climb up the mountain was every bit as twisty as Tail of the Dragon, probably more so. I'm not taking the time to count each turn in this 19-mile climb. I think TOTD stretches some of their counting in order to achieve their infamous "318 curves." This road certainly has A LOT of turns and a good reason for its 30-mph speed limit.

The fallen tree tunnel road was still closed. That snow will be there a while. We continued to General Sherman Tree. There was less snow on the walkways, but now they were iced-over. We heard a report that a woman had fallen on her back and was awaiting medical transport. I wished I had the ranger's boot chains, but I also wished that my wife had packed some boots. Still, boots and sneakers slip on ice about the same. We carefully made our descent to the giant trees.

I didn't mention before, but these trees have a chemical, known as tannin, which protects them from fire and insects. This allows them to live for thousands of years, even through forest fires. We stopped for a photo inside of a burned tree that still stands tall and strong...

The same tannin that protects the tree while it's alive also preserves it after it falls. Some of these trees fell over 100 years ago. When and why this one fell is unknown...

I wonder if tannin is how the trees in the Petrified Forest were preserved long enough to turn to stone. Now for General Sherman tree. Again, it's nearly impossible to capture this entire tree in a photo with regular lenses. But this shot shows its width at the base...

General Sherman Tree is not the widest, tallest, or oldest, even at 2200 years. But it has the more wood than any other tree in the world...

My wife does a lot of studio aerobic activity. So, she had an easier climb out of that area than mine. Still, the lack of snow and ice allowed me to make longer strides than on Friday. I was still tired, but at least my face wasn't pounding. We descended the mountain, visited a gourmet burger joint for dinner, and then returned to my grandmother's place to say goodbye and retrieve the trailer. My grandmother is 94 years old. Her oldest son died just days before my mother's funeral (Mom was oldest). So, Grandma's has had a tough six months. I don't know if I'll ever see her again.

We spent the night at a hotel near the airport. That gave us an extra hour of sleep since we had been staying an hour away. Her flight was at 6:20am, which meant that she needed to be there by 4:20am (our practice when traveling by air). She was disappointed with her forthcoming 7-hour layover in Dallas. I reminded her that I have eight long layovers ahead of me. My plan was to drive to St. George, UT, a 576-mile drive. For me, the early departure was welcome!

My plan is to return home via a northern route so that I can pass through more states. I haven't mentioned it in this thread, but my wife collects "Been There" mugs from Starbucks. She added quite a number to her collection during our last trip to CA. But we were unable to get to any northern states due to snow and ice along I-80 in November. We had a trailer then, too. I'm hoping to add some of those states to her collection on this trip. I'm also adding to my own collection of states visited in this car. Here is my "States Visited" map after November's trip to CA...

I just noticed that Oklahoma and Ohio are not filled. I must've shared this map before I had completed my return run from CA to VA in November. I'll find out soon which path I need to take and whether I'll get to fill more states. Until next time...

 

[StealthGTI]

It took a while to compose my last post. I see two new messages:

Sliding backwards with your foot solidly on the brake is an incredibly scary feeling.

You did good....

Thanks! I'm not one to wait around for help if there's something else I can do. A tow truck would have taken MUCH longer, closed the road (impact to others), and cost a fortune. My way took about 60-90 minutes and cost me only time and pride.

Blog-worthy thread. Great photos too.

Thanks! These posts will eventually be used to create a blog entry on my website.

 

[jimlloyd40]

You're probably getting tired of the accolades but I love this. Pictures, history and great story telling.

 

[StealthGTI]

Back for more...

You're probably getting tired of the accolades but I love this. Pictures, history and great story telling.

I do appreciate the feedback.

My wife got up around 3:30am to pack her bags. I slept until about 10 minutes before we needed to leave. The hotel was just five minutes from the departure terminal; so, I had the luxury to kicking her out the door and then coming back to pack. We said our goodbyes and I returned to the hotel room to pack. Traveling with her, even for a weekend, often results in LOTS of extra stuff in my car. My back seat had just a jacket and a suitcase for my outbound trip. Now, it looks like this...

She packed snacks! I usually shop along the way. I haven't mentioned it yet, but I packed ten days worth of clothing, plus two polo shirts in case we went out. I was on Day 11 and wearing clothes that I had hand-washed the previous day. I needed to find a laundromat, something I thought I'd have time to do after my first visit to Sequoia National Park. My destination was St. George, UT and I had already scouted a few laundromats to visit. I wasn't messing around with photos along the way: I had a mission!

I did take just one photo along the way. It was incredibly windy around Barstow. I stopped for fuel and noticed that someone had lost a meal... HAHA!

I got to St. George around 3pm, plenty of time to do laundry. My clothes are synthetic... "Cotton is Rotten." So, I only needed to do one load... none of my colors will bleed. However, there was a problem: I've done my own laundry for decades, but I hadn't been in a laundromat in nearly 30 years. I had LOTS of quarters, but there were no slots in the machines. There aren't any card readers on the machines, either. Damn! I needed help. I was the only man in the place. Certainly, there's some sort of stigma, perhaps even a delight, in a man asking a woman how to use a laundry machine. This was an "eye-roll" moment. I still had a week of travel ahead of me; so, I wasn't risking a case of rotten-crotch over a little pride. Luckily, there was an attendant who was not shy at all. She showed me how to load the machine, almost as if I had never done laundry before, go across the facility to the high-tech touchscreen to enter the machine number, what I wanted done, and then pay. It was super-easy once I saw what to do, but a bit strange after so many years. Everything was washed and dried in just over an hour. My dried stuff went straight into my suitcase. I hang-dry my pants since I don't need them to shrink around my variable waistline.

St. George appeared to be a college town. Even with that crowd, I was surprised to conclude that it might be the largest city with the most terrible LTE coverage I've visited. I expect this in tiny towns. But HERE? Even the WiFi at the hotel was slow. I guess I needed to pay extra for usability. No worries- I was going to bed early and hitting the road. I wanted to get an early look at road conditions in the morning.

I awoke before dawn and didn't like what I saw. But I still had time before I needed to make a decision. My soft plan was to either head east on I-70, continue north to I-80 east, or bug-out to return to I-40 if the northern roads were snowy. Of course, that assumed that Flagstaff wasn't a winter wonderland again! I had two potential plans: 1) Drive east along I-70 and mimic "The Fast Lane Truck's" towing torture test near Eisenhower Tunnel. They test truck and commercial van towing capacities by climbing the eight-mile grade between Dillon, CO and the entrance to the tunnel, then assess speed control during the descent. They climb flat-out and time the run to see if the trucks can maintain the speed limit of 60 mph while towing its max load. My trailer is not the GTI's "max load" and I'm sure that the car could easily blast up most grades. So, I had some ideas for a spoof of some sort. My other option was to take I-80 east and see if I could duplicate this viral "highway to heaven" photo near Fort Bridger, WY.

NOT MY PHOTO...

Which way would I go? Or would I have to take I-40 again?

Much to my surprise, I-15 north from St. George is a steady, 50-mile climb with an 80-mph speed limit. There's no way I'd pull a trailer at 80 mph up a grade, especially in the darkness of the early morning. Sure, the GTI can do it; I have no doubt that I could blast beyond 100-mph up the mountain with that trailer. But my trailer's tires are rated for just 81 mph. The greater concern is that I could actually watch my fuel gauge's needle move. The car was sucking-down premium unleaded faster than Ron White goes through Scotch! I set the cruise control for 70 and made plans to stop at 1/2-tank. That point came at less than 100 miles! I knew the economy for this tank would be in the toilet. I refueled at 111 miles with 7.1 gallons for (drum roll, please) FIFTEEN MILES PER GALLON! It was 15.6, if I'm precise. The next tank was 20.6... so, there was some recovery once my elevation was leveled a bit.

Speaking of fuel economy, my average economy in California was 25 mpg, due in large part to their 55-mph speed limit for all towed trailers. Anyway, the time came to have another look at Google's road conditions map...

As much as I would have liked to go over that pass and perhaps see Moab along the way, there was no way that I was going to risk a repeat of what happened in Sequoia National Park. I-80 was clear at that moment and the forecasts for Evanston and Laramie looked good. So, away I went with a new destination of Rock Springs, WY. Would I see the "highway to heaven?" I don't know. But I began to formulate a plan to maximize my odds of getting that photo!

It was time for another fuel stop. There was a closed petting zoo next door. I was surprised to see these "zonkeys."

Somewhere along the way, I noticed these "crop circles" on satellite imagery...

These were not the "crop circles" that I had seen on TV many years ago. I don't think I had ever seen crop fields in any shapes other than those with straight edges. I would have to investigate when I got home. I mentioned Moab above. I'm not sure why I thought Utah's landscape was filled with red buttes, but I was disappointed to not see any of those iconic formations. I guess I gave those up when I aborted I-70. I settled for this very "un-Utah-like" photo...

I was looking for a Utah "Been There" mug from Starbucks for my wife. St. George's Starbucks didn't have any. I called ahead to a few in Provo and found a place that had them. "Destination Set!" As I approached, I saw this temple from the highway. I decided to exit and take a photo...

I like to photograph old churches. This certainly did not qualify as "old," but the church vibe was the basis for my stop. I think that's my first car photo with a temple. Here is an example of an "old church" photo from years ago...

With a "Been There" mug in-hand, I left Utah and crossed into Wyoming. I was very pleased to see this sign not flashing...

I continued east and saw a rock formation that resembled a butte that I had hoped to shoot in Utah. I took the closest exit and made my way there for a photo...

I made it to Rock Springs very early... too early to quit. I decided to continue to Rawlins. It was cold and windy... VERY windy! The hotel wasn't even half-full. That meant plenty of easy parking for the trailer...

After I was settled-in and ready for bed, I realized something important. Remember the "snacks" that my wife tends to overpack? Some of those snacks were in the form of canned alcoholic beverages. It was supposed to chill down to 17 degrees that night. I had no desire to go out to the car the next morning to find them exploded all over the interior. "Damn! Gotta get dressed and bring them in!" It was cold! Once I was ready for bed again, I remembered something else... the EGGS in the refrigerator. Reefers are nice for keeping things cold, but they don't stop anything from freezing. I got dressed AGAIN and went to save the eggs. "Oh, look! More canned cider!" NOW I can go to bed!

I just had to hope that the mountain passes along I-80 would stay clear for one more day...

 

[JC_451]

The picture of the road disappearing into the sky is amazing.

Highway to Heaven

Those circles are from center pivot irrigation...or aliens.

 

[Treadup]

From hear on out, variable waistline is my excuse as well. That and being middle aged.
Side note, I think I heard Ron White decided to put the Scotch down. Good for him. I heard you say you don’t drink on one of your YT videos. That makes at least 2 of us on this forum.