What a wonderful trip to Sun Valley Idaho. We pulled into Ketchum Idaho on Wednesday, October 13th, and spent most of the following four mostly warm and sunny days bathing our ears in some of the sweetest Jazz you could wish for. We listened to 24 different and distinctive bands and ensembles. Everything from 1920’s style big bands, to a flute-piano duet playing Broadway Hits. Music styles that included the Blues, Dixieland, Swing and even French interpretation of American Jazz. And when we thought it couldn’t get any better than this, Claudette Stone from the Mardi Gras band did a powerful rendition of “America the Beautiful” for the closing act while over 1,500 people stood holding hands and swaying to the music and singing the chorus together.
Our friends, Ed and Sarah Dougherty joined us for the four days. Since we didn’t have the Alpine Coach in our plans back in February, we actually stayed in a condo that we reserved and paid for way back in February. We checked out on Sunday, and Ed and Sarah left just after lunch. Judy and I stayed until the last echoes of “America the Beautiful” died away and then stayed the night in Arcturus. We woke up on Monday to snow down to the 6,000 foot level. We were parked at the 5,996 foot level, so there was snow only on the roof and the tops of the mirrors.
We are now heading south as fast as our little wheels will roll. We did 130 miles on Monday. We camped at a casino, Cactus Pete’s, on Monday night. It was only $10 for electricity and sewer. The water was shut off for the winter. In fact the electricity was only on part of the time. Judy and I went over to check out the casino with a few nickels jingling in our pockets. We walked in one door, took a quick tour and exited at another door gasping for breath. We still had our nickels jingling in our pockets. No smoke free casino’s in Jackpot Nevada.
Today, Tuesday, we made another 203 miles south. We are now south of the 40th parallel and we are camped in Ely Nevada. It is on highway 93 and about even with Sacramento in California. The big difference is Sacramento is about 200 ft elevation and it is warm and sunny. Ely is over 6,000 feet in elevation, and it is bitter cold and windy. We drove about 100 miles around this 6000 foot elevation with perhaps three inches of snow lining the roadway. Fortunately the roadway was bare and mostly dry. One thirty mile stretch was warming just enough to create patchy fog. The weather people say it is about ten degrees colder than normal. Well maybe another couple hundred miles south and things will warm up.
Just looked at the weather forecast, and there is serious snow in the forecast for the next three days for everything above 6,000 feet. Connors Pass, which is between us and Cedar City near Zion National Park in southern Utah, tops out at over 7,700 feet. We will check the roads in the morning, but it probably means that we are going to kick back and take it easy for a couple days here in Ely. Oh well we wanted to be Snow Birds, I just thought it would be warmer than this. Well at least we are no longer in the tent.
Our internet connection is perfect here but the cell phone is on roam. I plan to do some updates on our web page, so check it out in the next day or two. Meanwhile feel free to e-mail and we can chat that way.