ET Highway Day 3: Snow Day

I was the first to awake this day, my chest congestion triggered a coughing attack that caused me to run to the bathroom so as to not awake my father Postie Bear and Just Leafy.
After getting past that, I decided to look out the window to see if the weather reports were correct.  And of course they were.  Laying on the ground was a light dusting of snow, but nothing to be concerned about.
There really wasn't any place open to eat at this particular time of the day, so we hit the Texaco to try and stock up on snacks to tie us through to the evening.  The service station's attendant told us that he could make us breakfast, and he did.  We were a bit skeptical, but it actually turned out to be alright... Almost McDonalds in quality!

Just as we were about to pack up and head out the snow started again, and some of us decided to buy tuques and gloves as well.  The temperatures were very low this morning at about -10 Celsius, later in the day raising to about a flat zero.  So it was a blessing that the Texaco had what was needed.


This turned out to be the hardest day for me health wise, the cold and the thin air at our elevation of over 6000 Feet above sea level really made it hard for me to breathe.  I was coughing and coughing, so I did not assist in the running but tried my best at navigating.  Thank god Cougar Kid had Fisherman's Friends (I could not find one place that sold them) with him, as the Hall's I was forced to buy were no longer doing the trick.  The Fisherman's Friends were just the thing needed, and allowed for deep inhalations and allowed me to speak and call out distances without coughing up a lung.

There were a few caches that were not a part of the series strewn in the mix, and these were a welcomed diversion.  They allowed all of us to get out and do a bit of traditional caching, but they were not hard to to find.




This was an interesting leg of the series, because none of the caches were on a straight and logical path.  Instead they had us heading in one direction for a few hundred, then they would force us to drive 15-20 min in another direction to get another few hundred, and this would continue all day long.  It would continue to snow off and on too, covering the landscape intermittently with a light dusting of snow.  It was beautiful, and filled Just Leafy and I with a sense of awe! 

We did not have to go so hard this day because there was only about 590 left for us to do.  And by the time light started to fade yet again we made our trips goal come true.... We finally got 2000-E.T.

With giant grins on our faces, we setup the tripod and camera once more and grabbed a group shot holding the ammo-can in jubilee.  As we loaded back up into the van, we decided to grab just a few more on the way back to Tonopah.



When we arrived we were greeted with a nice dumping of snow everywhere.  It is interesting how a difference of 500 Feet can have such a drastically different effect on the weather.

After a quick stop in at the motel for a brief clean up it was time for a nice celebratory meal at the Mizpah Hotel, where we were treated to a nice congratulatory dessert (I am sure Just Leafy had something to do with that).

We returned to the Clown Motel and turned in for the night, as tomorrow brought new challenges that had to be over come.