The Sierra Nevada - King's Canyon, Mammoth Mtn., Mono Lake, Yosemite.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The Midwest

Off to the Midwest again for some chilly weather. Many from the Midwest would argue that 32F is not really chilly. True, it could be worse. This time I am flying into CID via DEN. I am hoping I don't have to deal with any ice tonight on my drive to Dubuque - driving tonight since I have a 9am meeting with a customer. I expect to get in tonight at around 10:45 Central time, then drive about an hour into the middle of Iowa.
I did get one First Class upgrade on my last leg going into CID.

This week looks to be good for driving in Iowa and Nebraska - not too many temps below 32 and no precipitation until around Wednesday - at least that's what my weather service tells me.

If you didn't know this about me - I am a NASCAR fan, and NASCAR season just opened last week with the Daytona 500. My Father-in-law and I both do Fantasy NASCAR on Yahoo Fantasy Sports. We have a lot of fun with it. I got to catch a bit of the race this weekend (Avondale Raceway in AZ) during my lunch layover in SFO. Wouldn't you know 2 of my 4 drivers got caught up in the big crash, which means less points. But, we had picked some of the same drivers this week, so he lost as many points as I did on one of those guys. And I had picked Kyle Busch early on but switched last minute. Oh well, I still have him in points going into week three.

I hope to have a safe and hassle free trip this time through, weather seems to be participating fairly well. I took a few pictures over the Sierra - I will send it to the blog a little later. The snow was amazing.

I am getting excited about camping with the kids. We have started talking about it, although it is a bit cold to start camping since we still have lots of snow in the upper elevations. My son and I talked about finding some places to camp that we have to canoe into. I like the sound of that. Minimalist camping.

I am going to sign off for now. Getting ready for my next flight. Hope my luggage makes it.

Mr. Smith...

Many legs, no delays...

So I am going to do this quickly, because I have no delays today. Somewhat crazy to have 4 legs to get home from FSD to RDD. I had to go through DEN and SAN. You may ask, why SAN? Well, it was much cheaper because the same flight number and flight crew flew from FSD to DEN to SAN - like a through flight, only switching planes. Well, I did get two 1st Class complimentary upgrades, and my last leg I will be in a small plane but in seat 9C, which is just about the same as 1st Class on a little EMB120. Those of you that fly know exactly what I am talking about. I must have outranked alot of travelers today.

Had some pretty crazy weather experiences while in South Dakota. It was well under freezing for most of my trip, with exception of today when I went out to the car at 7:30am and it was a balmy 24 degrees. When I left FSD, it was 40 degrees. There was still wind chill, but it was like "shorts" weather. DEN was still pretty cold, but SAN was 71 degrees. SFO is 61 degrees, and I hope it will be warm over the weekend in RDD. Home sweet home.

This was a really good trip for the business. The FA Office people in South Dakota are so friendly and warm, with such frigid temps outside. I did get to visit Aberdeen by car. It was an "ice road" for 70 miles. You just have to keep it slow around the wide corners. On my way back down to Brookings, I started struggling with the winds on I-29 for a good 40 miles. When I got to my hotel and turned on the news, I found out that they closed that freeway not more then an hour after I was off of it. I guess the week before, over 150 vehicles got stranded on that highway because of a blizzard and high winds. The temps were around -17, with an added wind chill it felt more like -35 outside the car. Thank Hertz for seat warmers and All Wheel Drive. Thank God for getting me off the highway safely.

I have to get ready to board now, so until next time (late Feb), happy travels...

Mr. Smith

Once again - into the frozen tundra

I am on my way again to Beautiful South Dakota. Some would say there isn't much there, well, there isn't. And the winters can be pretty harsh. "They" also say that Minnesota can be colder, which I'm sure it can, but this week I am in for much colder weather then last week in Minnesota. Someone told me that at least in MN, we have trees to block the wind. So True! Not many trees in SD. Therefore the wind chill factors in right away. I believe the high for Tuesday is slated to be around 0 degrees - without the wind chill. Well that would be splendid if I were in Sioux Falls for the day, but instead I plan on driving up through Watertown to Aberdeen - about 3 hours North. By the time I get up there in the early afternoon, I think it will be -3 (they were forecasting -21 for 6am). Glad I am staying in Sioux Falls Monday night.

So let's just say I am in for some cold weather. I talked to a guy on the plane into SFO that was heading to Siberia - I thought people only went to places like that in the movies. He was preparing for highs around -25F.

I guess it is supposed to be cold in Redding, CA also - looks like 30F is forecasted for Thursday morning - brrrr.

Safe travels - until next time.