Day after Thanksgiving and we are back home in Wyoming.  The drive to Utah was a little unsettling!  We hit south pass (which is where the Willie handcart company got stuck) and the winds were blowing 65+ mph (there is an electric sign that tells you how fast the winds are blowing), blowing snow, slick roads, and to top it all off the ranchers were moving cattle that day, so 100's of cows were on the side of the roads.  The visibility was really poor as well.  It took us an hour or so to get passed that.  Then the roads were dry with no rain or snow or anything for a couple of hours.  At Evanston we hit snow that got worse around Park City, then Heber was clear, but Provo Canyon was pouring rain!  Every kind of weather!  Here is a picture I took that doesn't show what it was really like at south pass:

The road looked like dry ice the wind was blowing up so much snow!

The days in Utah were lovely!  I loved seeing Audrey and Lauren and my mom and sister and Brian's parents!  I got to see so many of my friends and enjoy the wonderful weather!  My kids were going outside in bare feet!

We had our Thanksgiving Feast on Wednesday with my mom and enjoyed all the food, especially Palmer's Peanut Butter Pie!

The drive back was really nice--completely dry and minimal winds.  We ate leftover turkey and rolls in the car on the way home since it was Thanksgiving Day.  We listened to Palmer's rock play list from his ipod on the way home and it helped to make the time go by.  Aerosmith and the Cars, and Styx are a great way to spend your time when you are stuck in a car for 7 hours!

As we were going over south pass and since the weather wasn't so bad, (only about 30 degrees and the wind was only 35 mph) we took the turn off that I've wanted to take ever since we moved up here.  It said the Willie Handcart site was just a mile off the road.  It was a dirt road and we followed it for awhile without finding a marker.  You could see the wagon ruts from all the wagon trains off the side of the road which was very cool.  We finally turned back.  I looked it up later and saw that it was really 9 miles off the road and it was the Rocky Ridge site.  It's a smaller site compared to the Martin Handcart site in Casper.  It was pretty sobering as I looked around and saw the barren landscape and the winter weather and thought about those poor pioneers being out in the elements with many of them losing their lives.  It really brought home what they went through.  We would like to go back in the spring and really spend some time there.

Slow day today, Brian's working and the kids are getting caught up on their homework.  No black Friday shopping for us!