Snow Blindness

I'm having a little trouble typing this post, because I think I am suffering from an old Inuit malady called snow blindness...

Oh wait, snow blindness requires the SUN to reflect off the snow, and that is what causes the damage...

Well, it can't be snow blindness then, because no SUN was to be seen today....

Maybe I suffer from TV snow blindness, because that is what it seemed like I saw all day today, was white snowflakes in front of my eyes, like the snow on the television...

Does the television even have snow anymore? I'm not sure.

The point is on my round trip car trip to Clarkston, Washington today, the snow came down the whole time, except while I was in the towns of Lewiston and Clarkston.

In these two towns, the daffodils were blooming, the grass was green, the trees were budding out with beautiful pink flowers, and the forsythias were in bloom....
It was like I was on another planet.

I enjoyed a brief hour or so in the "banana belt" of Idaho while dropping Kiki Aru off at her best friend SG's house to spend a few days during spring break.

I did learn a very good lesson on this trip. Don't rely on the mapping skills of a seventh grader to help you arrive at your destination. We safely arrived in Lewiston, but getting from Lewiston to our destination (Kiki Aru's friend's house in Clarkston) was not working out with two seventh graders trying to navigate. Well, SG's grandpa came to the rescue, found us at the Lewiston Dairy Queen, and showed us the way. Thanks Grandpa!!

I bid fairwell to the fair weather, (mild, but still cloudy. No sun to be seen), and headed for my old alma mater, The University of Idaho.

It had been a while since I cruised around the campus in Moscow, so I drove around, and it has really changed a lot. I drove past the Tri Delt house, the sorority I lived in while a student at the University of Idaho. It hasn't changed much, at least on the outside.

Here is a picture of what it looks like in nice weather....it wouldn't have looked like this today.IEG and I will be visiting this sorority this summer, as the U of I Tri Delta house celebrates its' 80th anniversary.

I know Moscow has some pretty good eating establishments, and I thought I might try one out for a late lunch.

But an invisible force drew me to a place I used to eat while I was a student at the U of I---

Taco Time.
And this is a very special Taco Time, because this is where PKR and I went to celebrate after he proposed to me on December 10, 1984 at the Tri Delta house, and I said yes.

Students looked miserable as the snow was falling and the wind was blowing. Your typical April day in Moscow, Idaho was my thought.

Then I headed home, with a detour to the Coeur d'Alene Casino for some gas. Oh, FYI, there is now an exit to get to the Casino. Since I am so observant (probably the snow blindness had something to do with it), I missed the new exit heading down to Clarkston, but was a bit more observant on the way back through.

As I drove into Coeur d'Alene, I decided I needed to top off this journey with a treat. Maybe the short stay in the parking lot at the Lewiston Dairy Queen influenced this decision, but a DQ Peanut Buster Parfait sounded really good. But I realized, once the nice young man at the DQ window handed me this wonderful treat, that I was not going to be able to eat and drive with a Peanut Buster Parfait. H-m-m-m-m.

Hey, I'm in a town by a lake, so why not go look at the lake. Even if it is snowy and foggy, there is still beauty to be found along the shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene. So I headed down Lakeshore Drive down by Tony's and parked and watch the lake ...

while I dug into the Peanut Buster Parfait. Yum!!