Howdy and Aloha!

Glad to get out, suffering from cabin fever after three hardworking months at home. Pretty colorful program this time – Elko/Nevada, Hawaii, Washington and Idaho – and, fortunately, not as many miles to drive and hotels to stay as last time in the Dakotas. Accomplished six or seven updates and one new guidebook plus a couple of articles inbetween trips and were drowning in snow in January. Haven't seen the sun for a long time!

Our flight (11,5 hours) appeared endless,especially since they asked from the very beginning to close the shutters - it was pitch-dark on the plane and got dull and boring soon. Wished they would ban this stupid policy and just distribute eye covers to sensitive passengers. Who the heck can sleep or wants to watch TV for 12 endless hours?

Plane took the Northern route over Greenland, where we had a gorgeous view over the icebergs (pic above).

Business class was packed (therefore we got no upgrade), for the rest the plane was 2/3rds empty. Food was the usual: „chicken“ or „pasta“. Arrived half an hour earlier to Houston and didn't have to worry about our connecting flight - which was over 1,5 hours late anyway.

So, at the end we only arrived to chilly Salt Lake City after 10 pm, two hours later than expected, and checked into our Super 8 Motel at around 11 pm, fortunately, with all our luggage this time! We got a brandnew Alamo rental SUV, a Hyundai Tucson, but since we were so pooped after over 24 hours on the road without sleep, we were glad that we only had to drive a short distance to the motel.

Chilly, but sunny this morning in SLC. Snow-covered mountains in the background, but no snow in the forecast (yet). Heading out towards Nevada soon.