Thursday, March 1: I got up at 6:30 again today, a new record for me, and was getting ready for my shower when Misty decided to try the top of the door instead of the bottom. Once up there she wasn’t quite sure what to do!

I was drinking my coffee and looking at social media when I noticed snowflakes coming down outside. So, I started looking at the weather heading north. Not good. High winds and winter weather warnings in Northern Nevada. The details of weather aren’t easy to find online and I hadn’t hooked up the cable. But from what I could tell the stations were all out of Salt Lake City anyway. I decided I would leave right away and try to beat the weather. I looked up a couple other places to stay between Wells and Mountain Home just in case the weather turned bad and I had to stop. I could always sit by the side of the road for as long as it took.

The first hour and a half or so was fine. Little wind and no snow coming down. Snow all around on the ground but the road was clear. I did get a little worried when I saw two snow plows at different times coming towards me, though.

By the time I was getting close to Twin Falls the wind had picked up some but not too bad. Once I got onto I-84 around Twin Falls, though, it was considerable. I was going at least 5 miles below the posted speed limit of 80 and wasn’t fighting the wind too hard. Then I came to an area where there were warning signs along the road with wind socks on them saying, Frequent High Winds.

Oh, my, were they right. The wind was whipping along blowing me all over the road. The palms of my hands were sweating and I was hanging on for dear life. I had slowed down too but it didn’t seem to make a difference. I also had to pee something awful but I just wanted to get where I was going and hunker down.

I pulled into the Mountain Home RV park at about 1:30 Mountain time, a little over 3 1/2 hours on the road. I felt like pouring a drink but warmed up some soup for lunch instead. The park is a very nice park and the people were very friendly. They agreed the wind was bad, even around here, and told me it might snow again in the morning but would probably turn to rain in the afternoon, just like today. Well, it is dry now but I looked up the wind and it is blowing at 25 mph with higher gusts. I checked and the wind isn’t supposed to be as bad tomorrow but if it is, I am staying put.

Now I am wondering what to do with myself. Make pizza dough, of course! I had thought of having pizza a few weeks back and bought some yeast. I already had some ’00’ flour that I brought from home and had bought some vegetables yesterday. I will have to see how the oven works for it and I am sure I will be setting off the fire alarm with a hot oven.

Oh, and a couple things I forgot to write about yesterday. First, before I left Cathedral Gorge the rangers had come through on their morning rounds and I asked them about the BOOMS the night before. They said it was the Air Force and that living around there they are used to it. I don’t know how anyone could be used to it when you don’t know it is coming!

Second, Courtney texted me and said, Winnie, my only surviving chicken, had been killed by the damn, nasty raccoons. I had wondered if the door needed to be charged but forgot to tell Courtney to do it. Poor Winnie.

I sit here listening to my book, feeling the wind gusts shake the camper and I can literally see tumbleweeds go flying by, but also a bit of sun breaking through. This is the worse wind I have experienced so far and I have had nothing but wind for the last couple of weeks! I just looked up the weather again and it looks okay to take off tomorrow. I am planning on going as far as La Grande but will depend on weather. That is where my camper was made so may have to make a stop to see if they can give me all the manuals.

While the sun was briefly out, I went out to hook up the sewer hose and cable for TV. I had plugged in electrical when I first got here but had thought to dump the sewer in the morning and didn’t want to hook up water if it was going to freeze overnight.

I thought it was interesting that the man who showed me to my spot said, “oh, you are self-contained,” then acted like I didn’t need any hookups. After paying $43 for a night (one of the highest I have paid) I was certainly going to use anything I wanted to, especially my electric heater all night, lol. Even though the sun was out, it was still very cold especially with the wind chill factored in.

It is about 5:30 now and there have been several RVs pulling in. Some of them huge motor homes pulling vehicles behind them. I can’t even imagine them driving in this wind. As I was driving along there were several semis with two to three trailers and it was obvious they were having a hard time, their trailers swinging back and forth in their lane. Freaked me out sometimes passing them because they would block the wind then it would hit again as I passed. And a lot of the big motorhomes are driven by people that are (hmm, how should I say this…) a ‘few’ years older than me.

Pizza turned out pretty well. I used my cast iron pan and heated it on the stove top before putting it in the oven. And, yes, the damp fire alarm went off a couple of times! I put some sausage, mushrooms, onions, peppers, and Kalamata olives on top.

Misty was not a good traveler today. It took her at least 20 minutes of meowing, sometimes very loudly, before she finally settled down. Then, when we got to the RV park, she was on the leash for a few minutes but it was wet and snowing around with the wind blowing hard. I didn’t want more wet cat prints all over so I put her right into the camper, where she immediately went under the quilt. I finally flung the quilt off her at about 7:00, about six and a half hours later. I am sure she has gotten used to being out and about a lot of the day so this has been hard on her, being shut up for the last two days.

Well, that is about it for today. Hope the weather is better tomorrow!