To Boise, the Moon and back in time for the Symphony!

I have been enjoying my last few hours as a Lockheed Martin employee, and will be employed by the "Bechtel Marine Propulsion Corporation" by the time I wake up. However, the only major change for me will be the guy who signs my paycheck.

This has been an interesting week, with temperatures getting down to -18 and -29 on consecutive mornings, about the time I'm standing at the bus stop. Fortunately, the bus driver had gotten the bus warmed up to 32 degrees by the time we stepped on! Now I must admit that -29 is cold, but it didn't feel that cold (although it wasn't conducive to sleeping).

Thursday morning I drove to work so I would be an hour closer to Boise that night. This was my first time driving to work and it gave me a new appreciation for the bus drivers. They don't use sand or salt, so the wind blown, snow packed roads become sheets of ice and you can feel your car sliding sideways as the wind blows! At least you don't have to worry about falling asleep! Of course, you're also in a "caravan" of buses and trucks that stretches as far as you can see (which is a long ways in Idaho), maximizing your diesel fume intake!

Although the "high desert" where I live and work is known to have mostly sunny weather, winter also brings "temperature inversions". In a temperature inversion, the temperature rises with altitude, creating a dense fog that entombs your car, windows and mirrors in frost while you're driving! Below are a few pictures taken while driving through an inversion, on an otherwise very sunny day.
Just think quick when you see brake lights! Of course, there are no towns for over a 100 miles, so just keep your eyes peeled for roaming livestock!
Maybe someday my cheap camera'd pictures will be famous too!

Friday was spent at a holiness convention in Caldwell (near Boise). It's always refreshing to enter a church, sense the presence of the Holy Spirit, sing praises to our Heavenly Father and receive challenging holiness messages. Next time, I'll try to be better about getting some pictures of the church and family who provided a room for me while I was there.

Saturday morning I headed back to Idaho Falls, stopping at the moon, well, Craters of the Moon National Park, on the way. If you remember from my December newsletter (see December 2008 post), you might remember the dark, lonely description of the strange moon-like landscape. Well now it's covered up in snow and they groomed the road for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. Here's a few pictures:
On the edge of an inversion

The trees look like they're bent over crying to see the sun.
Here's the view once you get above the fog! Makes me just want to mess up the pristine snow:)
In case you can't read lips, I'll translate for you: "Ouch! Who put that tree there?"
After adjusting the camera, it doesn't seem so bad!
I couldn't resist doing some downhill skiing with my XC skies, oh, and messing up the pristine snow! 7 minutes up, 45 seconds of out-of-control down. If you click on the picture and look closely, you can see a sign marking the bottom. The snow was deeper then my poles and very soft!

After arriving home, sore as could be from the cross country skiing, I headed off to the Idaho Falls Symphony. The concert featured 4 chamber groups that included a brass quintet, woodwind quintet, string quintet and string septet complete with a harp and harpsichord!

I promise - it only got better from here, but cameras weren't allowed!