If you’ve followed our adventures, you may remember that we left Minnie in a storage yard in Virginia last June. At the time, we thought we might sell our Ashland home and move east, but when our sale fell through and the housing market followed down the hole, we decided to stay put. At least for now.
It was a long summer spent waiting for potential buyers to make an offer, all the while missing our portable coastal summer home. Rather than spend January stuck under dreary, cold overcast skies, we made the decision to head east to retrieve Minnie and bring her home by way of the warmer southern states.
But first, we had to drive through California during one of the rainiest winters on record.
Once we reached the Central Valley (and the torrential rain cleared) we could enjoy what weeks of drenching had left behind. Acres of gorgeous green grasses covered the normally parched fields and hills from Sacramento to Bakersfield.
The storms were not finished with the West Coast, but keeping a close eye on the weather it appeared we could safely reach Flagstaff, Arizona on Interstate 40, saving us at least a day and a half of driving farther south to Interstate 10.
After an uneventful drive to Flagstaff, where hotels were not only booked up, but out of this world expensive, I madly scrambled to find a room, booking a hotel that had a restaurant so meals would be close by…just in case the 1-3 inches of snow that was predicted arrived overnight.
What a surprise we woke up to. The Flagstaff airport reported 17 inches of snow. Pretty close to a foot greeted us, creating a giant snowball of anxiety. Fortunately, Reg had a pair of gloves in the truck and the hotel staff loaned him a shovel and assured him the roads ahead were clear. I like to think I did my share, packing up our room and loading our bags on the luggage cart…then pushing the luggage cart down the snow-lined path to load into the truck. What an adventure as we forged on ahead to Albuquerque where we had plans to have dinner with friends.
After just two days of driving, we’re off to quite start. What could possibly happen next?
carryoncouple 