Back in the Valley

After a long winter, we're back in the valley...well almost.  I was able to leave Andover the day after our last faculty meeting, June 8th.  Nancy and the kids will join me when I pick them up at the SLC airport on June 20th.

The drive west cleared my mind.  It's the first time I've done the drive alone since the fall of '96, when I was heading back east.  I took the easy/normal/boring route of I-90/80, but it felt different this time.  I loaded up my iPhone with a ton of Podcast that Nancy and the kids never would have let me listen too and got in the zone.  I put in just over 1000 miles a day, about 18 hours.  The first day I got about 60 miles west of Chicago.  Crossing the Mississippi River in the early morning was great.  Then through Iowa, Nebraska, and into WYO.  I spent the second (cold) night in Muddy Gap.  The next morning I had coffee at a new coffee shop in Lander (in the building that used to be a drug store across from the Noble and the bank).  I shopped for provisions at Mr. D's and headed to Driggs.

The cold that I experienced in the desert of Muddy Gap translated into a dusting a snow on Togwotee Pass.  Just my luck as I'm driving along I see a brown spot in the willows and stop to watch.  A momma griz and two cubs walked right by.  First bear I've seen on the Pass.  I got to Jackson just in time to tune in the Red Sox game on the radio.  After another stop at Hungry Jacks (for forgotten provisions) I was dropping into Pierre's Hole before noon.