We arrived yesterday at the cabin around 3:00 p.m. after doing several hours of shopping in Laramie . All of us were glad to finally get here, although the long drive of 1,850 some miles in two and a half days didn’t seem all that bad.

Our drive west took us through the rolling wooded hills of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately it was raining the entire way through that large state.

The trees grew less and the open fields became more plentiful in Ohio. Also, the sun came out in Ohio. Indiana was much the same and we had a beautiful sunrise on the day we left.

(photo taken in motion on purpose with the tree in the foreground.)

The state of Illinois is always a tough one. Not much to look at on the interstate and the suburbs of Chicago seem to go on forever. However, they do have Culver’s, my favorite fast food hamburger restaurant.

We hit rain again in Iowa but only halfway through the state this time. We passed a windmill blade being transported. It looked a bit like a huge fish out of water. Immense!

Nebraska is one huge state. We break it up by spending the second night about one-third of the way through in Grand Island. Yesterday it was nothing but fog, fog, and more fog. The hay rolls loomed eerily in the gloom.

After that, it’s all downhill from there. Well, only mentally speaking since physically we are constantly climbing in altitude. But the last day always goes fast and before we know it we are in Laramie doing the grocery shopping.

However, there are some pitfalls of only visiting the cabin one time per year. One I will talk about now and the major one I will leave until my next post.

We have both satellite TV and satellite internet access, both from different parties. We have a contract where we can switch them both off for six months of the year and have them on the other six months. This works great with the television and we never have any problems other than having to re-verify each time by calling the service.

The internet on the other hand has always been a bit hit and miss. Last year it worked like a charm from the moment we arrived—a hit. This year, however, it was very much a miss. It was not working! Poor Rick on the phone to them (which in order to get a strong enough signal to talk to them he has to stand outside) for over an hour the first time. It turns out the satellite we were on was having problems with the transponder that we were on, so they ended up switching us over to a new one. We had to wait an hour while they downloaded all the new information to our modem and that finally gave us a chance to have dinner at around 7:30 p.m. When Rick called them back one hour later and talked to the nice man in India with a thick accent, all was restored! Hurrah!

Now if the other problem was as easily solved … stay tuned.

Oh! I almost forgot the treasure we found at the top of our driveway while taking the dogs for a walk just before dark last night. This wonderful giant puffball mushroom! At first when we saw something large and white in amongst the sage we thought it was a piece of styrofoam or some other kind of trash. I’ve never seen one this big before. It was almost big enough to sit on like a stool!

Here it is as seen from the top.

And no, we are not eating it although they say that they are edible. It’s too pretty to disturb!

I’ll leave you with a photo of my breakfast this morning. Rick made delicious bran muffins which are kind of a tradition on our first morning here.