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I made it! I donated plasma yesterday morning and left right afterwards to hit the road. The roads were beautifully clear and I made good time. Leaving Rexburg, the temperature was a whole 4 degrees.

I got stopped once, just past Idaho Falls. The officer told me I needed to scrape the ice off my back window. Then he realized that there was ice on the inside too. So he told me, "Try to get it to thaw so you can see out the back."

As I headed South, the temperatures got a little warmer and the ice and snow that was left on my car slowly melted away.

I have (or had, rather) an SD slot in my car stereo, meaning I can play SD cards. So I dumped all my entire collection of Christmas music on an SD card and listened to that on the way down. But at highway speeds, the cab of my car is pretty loud. So I crank the volume of the stereo to compensate. Not a good idea. I guess after about 10 hours of that, it was through. It gave a loud electronic squeal and poof. That was it. All I heard was the bass line coming from my speaker box in the trunk. I fried the audio output of the other channels. Oops. I knew too much Christmas music wasn't a good idea. Apparently, the old stereo agreed. If only I'd had some sort of warning before it was too late. I guess this Christmas I'll be saying farewell to the stereo. She has served me well. And now, she can rest.

The car performed amazingly well, once again. That's up and back to Idaho 3 times now without any trouble. She is a real trooper. She's never let me down. I bought a new engine for her and I'll be putting that in sometime in the near future, then she'll really rock and roll (look out).

I calculated the fuel mielage for the trip. 20.5 miles per gallon. Not bad for an old clunker.

For your gee whiz file: it takes 13 hours to get from Rexburg to Joseph City, and that's if you stop and have a sit-down lunch, which I highly recommend to anyone driving that far.

It feels so good to be home. I can't wait for all my siblings to get back into town. By that time, I hope to be over this blasted cold.

Arizona, I love you!