The long ride home,....

So I've had some pretty interesting days. 

The plan was to drive to Casper on Thursday afternoon to watch my little sister, Onnah, race Thursday night and Friday morning.  Then I would be staying Friday and then skiing with Melissa "The Gangl" Gangl Saturday morning. Then, Saturday afternoon I would drive home to Lander. 

So, as some of you might not know, in order to get to Casper, you must cross Shirley Basin. WHICH. IS. WINDY.  

Most of the road through Shirley Basin is at a right angle to the direction of the wind, which has  about a hundred miles of bump-less prairie over which to gain speed. In breaks in the endless miles of snow fences, the snow blows across the roads and ices up.

 On Thursday the wind was blowing approximately 40-50 miles per hour. This made things interesting when crossing the hundred yard ice patches. The wind from the side made things interesting by blowing the truck sideways on the ice. However, it wasn't to bad once I got rid of my truck topper............ Yup, thats, what I said. 

I looked back at one point and saw the topper wobbling a bit, which kinda worried me. I crested the next hill, turned perpendicular to the wind, and hear a rather RIIIIIPPP, and watched my topper split into several pieces and fly off into the grass. Woohoo!!! Luckily, my ski bag stayed on the truck, it got tangled with a piece of twisted metal that was still attached to the truck. I couldn't stop laughing as I surveyed the damage. Of all the things to go wrong first on my 1985 truck, this was not what I was expecting. 

Aside from that sweet little break to gather my belongings from the countryside, the ride was pretty smooth. Once I got to Casper, I drove up and wacthed the race, ended up getting thrown in with one of the Laramie Junior Varsity teams and racing the sprint relay which was pretty fun. As I was leaving the trails that night, flakes had started to fall as 

The next morning the race was cancelled due to "to much snow" Yay. The roads were closing and there were nearly two feet of snow on the ski trails, and no end in sight. Johnny and I braved the roads up the mountain later in the morning to poach a few runs at the local downhill lopes. While we were there, for about an hour, it snowed at least 5 inches, it was really coming down. 

Well thats about it for the last couple days, and I'm only halfway home!!

Joe