Sun Valley

Saturday didn't start out too well. We had to get up early for an 8:00 a.m. appointment at Midas to get the brakes fixed on the van before we head up to Sun Valley. Rob snuggled with Gloria for a few minutes before we left. The kid's will be spending the day and night with grandma and grandpa while we're gone.

The brakes have been squeaking for a couple of weeks so we decided to bite the bullet and get it done. Rob expected it to be roughly $200, so when they called with a $700 estimate, we were shocked and appalled. We've had great luck with this van and have invested very little in it over the last 3 1/2 years so it's not like it's a waste of money, but with the cancellations we had this week, we'll have to scramble a little to make it work. Rob was able to talk them down to around $500 since we absolutely had to have it done. We had been hoping to leave town by 10:30 but it was close to 1:00 when the van was ready to go.

On The Road Again. . . . . . . . .

I was feeling very tired and overwhelmed in general, so it was nice to find such beautiful scenery when we got to the event location. This is some one's backyard in Sun Valley:

The set-up went off without a hitch and we were ready in more than enough time to go back to the hotel and change our clothes. The band was scheduled to start at 8:00 so we had time to look around.

We were invited to join the guests for dinner and we dined in the "green room" with the band. This is Kurt and Mary from the band Soul Purpose:

Rob could hardly get a word in edgewise during dinner as conversation flew all around us. I was just trying to figure out how to eat some of the interesting things the caterers had prepared.

Soul Purpose is a 70's disco band. They're really entertaining and quite talented:

It was a really good event.

We were very tired and chilly by the time the band finished up at midnight and we still had to pack everything up and drive home. I would have to say the drive between Sun Valley and Mt Home is almost as bad as the road to Winnemucca. 2 a.m. is not a fun time to be driving anyway, and the road was long and twisty with long stretches of nothing but sagebrush. We were thrilled to find this oasis in Fairfield:

The van was overheating, we were trying hard to stay awake, and we were cold. It was pretty miserable. We drove pretty close to the fire that is burning by King Hill. That was an eerie sight.

We got a second wind in Mt Home but still struggled to stay awake on the freeway to Boise. We arrived home at 4:30 a.m. and fell right into bed, exhausted.