Elk River Idaho

( Here, near US Oregon Portland, it's currently 8 degrees outside.)

Holy smoke. It only got down into the 20's in Sacramento.

Been a long time since I saw real cold, like they had in Elk River Idaho, where I got stuck for a week for foolishly thinking we could take a Sunday drive to see the woods and in a spot where the road looked level, found out it was actually a dip deeper than our VW.

I climbed out a window, dug a hole to the surface to look around, and while trying to figure out what to do, the nice guy from the Shell station who had just told me not to try it, drove up with his Jeep, dug down to the bumper, hooked a cable on it and winched me out. We got to spend the next few days playing dominoes and drinking Black Label with a bunch or real honest to goodness lumberjacks, who lived in houses you couldn't see because the snow as 12 feet deep and they were just lumps on the landscape.

Now, THAT was cold.

:-)

Doug