Well, we made it. In fact the trip in was a bit anti climactic. There were still a few deep drifts of snow in the middle section of our 3-mile long driveway but they hugged the shadowy north edge of the road, lieaving enough room on the one side to keep half the tires on dirt. Bob went first in the 4-runner with the four-wheel drive engaged. Although the drifts were as much as three feet deep, it was soft snow and with taking a run at it he could blast through. I followed in the van, loaded with most our gear, two dogs, and Mazzy riding on the front dash to make sure I was doing everything right. It was easy getting through the mud and snow by staying in the tracks Bob laid. I was only nervous for two of the drifts but they weren’t more than 30 yards long so I figured with the immense weight of a Chevy Van I would be able to get up enough speed to power through them. As it turned out the snow was so soft it gave way with ease and the mud was actually a bit more of a factor. The only thing that really took some time was clearing the drive of the 40 or so small trees Bob had used to get himself unstuck during his last attempt.

 

So, we drove right to the cabin and found everything in good condition. The animals were esctatic to be “home”; especially Mazzy who went ferral for until 10 PM when she decided she’d prefer to sleep in a ball on her down comforter in the safety of the loft. Rio and Chami both went swimming.

 

We fell easily into old habits. As soon as we arrived I vacuumed up dead flies that were convening across the carpet, the table, and just about every nook and cranny. Bob set to off-loading the vehicles. I next started a fire as it was only 50 in the cabin, then fetched two buckets of water from the high-flowing muddy river to get them settling to provide household water for everything except drinking. Once we were settled in we took a nice walk up onto the ridge to get a birds-eye view of the Yamsi Valley. It was like surveying your kingdom after a long journey away. We took our first river baths before retiring to the cabin for the rest of the night and it was “thrilling” as usual.

 

Yep, we are home at last.