Bob and Carolyn were nice enough to invite us up to their place for new year's eve. They had tickets to the local dress up event at the TH golf club house, but we didn't feel like getting gussied up. Instead we got up at the crack of dawn (5AM) to head for the hills from San Carlos. Without any traffic on the road I was surprised to find that we were there in just over 2 and half hours! Wow. 

There's been lots of snow in the mountains and we were worried about the travel. Bob called on Thursday night to warn us that the power was out and the snow was falling. Oh, what the hell. All the way up the radio kept warning that chains were needed "east of Twain Harte and east of Murphy's". I thought we'd be fine. And we were - until we got outside Sonora and headed up TH grade. At that point an abrupt change occured and we were looking at snow piled up on the side of the road. At the last signal light we saw the chain gangs doing their thing and so we made a u-turn and went back to Sonora. We holed up in a local Starbucks and waited for Bob to come down to get us.

It snowed off and on for the two days we were there. Sometimes a bit of rain and other times a real blizzard of snow. At one point Bob and I took the Jeep out to get a news paper and ended up shoveling the drive to get out - and Carolyn did a lot of snow shoveling too. A hundred yards from their house we were sliding and decided to back down the road and pack it in for the evening. We were snug as bugs. Bob erected the indoor movie-max and we enjoyed the first showing of a film with the new projector. 

	Claire's place is coming along well. The roof is on, the sides are up, just need another couple of years and her "cabin" will be complete. Maybe Ray can provide a recommendation for Italian granite.
It was cold outside. We'd sit in the warmth of the cabin and lose perspective. The sun was up, it looked warm. Then we'd step out the front door and -boom- the cold would hit us like a brick. Still, I was comfortable, if chilly, in a sweater. She was frozen to the bone despite use of the Minnesota fancy hat.

Bob tried a little sledding. But it was tough going.	Carolyn tried too, but decided mushing was easier.

Oh sorry, was that too fast? Here, take my hand and I'll help you back over the wall.	Ok, all is forgiven.