Long journey through winter

We asked the neighbors to watch after the horses and Annie Dog, making sure there was plenty of hay, Nutrena All-Breed and Atta Boy stocked up in the barn. We piled up a week's worth of Meow Mix into the cat dishes in the shop and filled up their water bowl, with instructions for the neighbors to check their water every so often if the temperatures plummeted again.

With Border Collies loaded and smiling in the back, Bill and I climbed into the Jimmy, pulled out of the driveway and headed south. South on North Kootenai Road. Then, east on HWY 200 toward Missoula. At Missoula, we decided to stay on the Interstate to Butte, then head south to Southern Idaho. The roads were surprisingly better than we had imagined.

After passing through Dillon, I wanted to turn off and head across the vast and gorgeous Centennial Valley toward Yellowstone, but I knew the winter winds could strand us somewhere---a long ways from anywhere. So, I kept my thoughts to myself, and we kept on driving.

We made it to Idaho Falls and found a motel that allows pets. We've just arisen for the day and figure we can get down into Arizona by tonight. Our destination: Yuma, where we may catch the 3:10 train and see where it takes us and the dogs. Wherever it goes, the sun will be shining, it will be warm, and we can walk on bare ground with no need for heavy boots.

Maybe we'll get off at one of the stops and just head off by foot, somewhere into the desert. The flowers won't be blooming just yet, but since neither of us have ever spent much time in the desert, it should be a fun adventure.

Or, maybe we'll just stay on the train and go on to Texas.

Maybe I ought to quit this trip right now, cuz I don't even know what direction the 3:10 from Yuma goes, or if it even goes. It's all a figment of my wishful imagination.

That's what three straight weeks of relentless winter does to one's mind. I'm still here, pecking away at my computer keys, occasionally looking up to watch another wisp of feather-light snow go sailing past the sliding glass door. Bill has just left for town where the big pickup has an 8 a.m. appointment for servicing at Taylor-Parker Motors.

Before leaving, he told me where he'd left the avalanche rake. My sisters are coming over this morning to borrow it, in hopes of removing a potentially dangerous section of ice hanging from one of their roofs. Bill says the rake is pretty flimsy and generally effective only with light snow.

The possibilities are endless. We've got light snow, we've got heavy snow, we have petrified snow. We've got snow enough to put white snow mustaches on virtually every American, even Brad Pitt.

We have a growing list of problems associated with our smorgasboard of snow. My mother's had the worst one "dished" out to her. Just before the Gonzaga blow-out (no snow pun intended) by Utah the other night, the huge deposit of snow and ice slid off her garage roof and decimated her TV satellite dish. Second time in one year.

The folks installing the dish put it on a post in the line of fire a few years back. A few years back, we weren't having winters like we've had in 2007-08 and 2008-09. So, the dish stood proudly, bringing in waves of wonderful television programming to my mother's living room. The "appropriate" location for the dish suddenly became inappropriate this time last year when the snow and ice came sliding off the roof and demolished the dish.

So, the satellite folks sold her a new dish for 180 bucks and put the new model under the eaves. After that, her reception was erratic, at best. So, the satellite folks came back out and put the dish on the post, where, on their past service visits, the residents of Tibbs Arabians had suggested was not exactly the best place. But, the experts did what experts do. It was not winter at the time, and what happens in winter, stays in winter and out of mind, out of sight to the service folks.

This morning, there's a call in to the satellite provider with a very nice explanation about the location of the dish on the post in direct line with ice and snow falling off the roof and the less than efficient reception location of the dish under the eave. There's also a gentle plea to come up with Plan C and to please do so soon because our mother is going on 88 and, during the long journey through winter, her TV is pretty important to her.

We'll see what happens. We have no real complaints with this provider because they're always very good about coming out to fix whatever problem gets in the way of my mother's service. We just have a philosophical difference with where they've been choosing to locate the satellite dish. Maybe we'll reach a compromise if they come today.

So, as I think over life as we know it in the snow capital of Idaho, does the 3:10 from Yuma go anywhere any more, or did it quit running after all those gunslingers shot each other's guts out in the movie?

I need to know because if this winter doesn't let up for a few days here pretty soon, I may just have to put my imagination into reality. Thoughts of the desert sound pretty good today.