S N O W & W I N D

We left this morning around 5:30...stars and moon shining in a clear sky. Not long after we got on the interstate you could see in the darkness that there were some clouds. About an hour and a half into our trip it started spitting snow...and it continued as we climbed the mountain to Flagstaff...soon the road started getting white and then there were just ruts to drive in. When I talked to Mother this evening, she said that they had gotten five inches in Flagstaff today. We thought that we would drive out of the snow pretty quickly after got down to lower elevations. And, for a while we were out of the snow...but then it started up again. The highway never got snow on it again...but the flurries continued with blowing snow across the road. We had snow in AZ and also a good part of the way across New Mexico. The wind was really strong, but wasn't noticeable because it was blowing into the back of the car...guess helping us along! At one of the reststops I decided not to go in because the wind was blowing so hard and it was cold and snowing. You can see Woody returning to the car in tonight's collage...he was coated with snow when he got back to the car. Part of the day Woody had to concentrate hard not to let tumble weed blow into us. As we traveled farther east it did clear up and there were beautiful billowy clouds and finally the winds calmed some. We made it to Amarillo, TX...741 miles! Long day of driving and riding!