Greetings from Hoth!

Moon over Lok, or how I learned to love my sunroof.

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"That's not it, bring me the hydrospanner!"

So... after all the troubles I had using commercial space transport on my last trip north, I decided to go by landspeeder this time.

It wasn't without adventure, having sprung a leak in a radiator hose before I even got off Tatooine. Luckily I was close to a town and my traveling companion was able to fix it. Luckily?

"In my experience, there's no such think as luck."

Luckily? Why do people say things like that... if I'd been luckier it would have happened while the SUV was with our nephew the mechanic last weekend, and he could have fixed it. Or if I'd been truly lucky it wouldn't have happened at all.

"It could be worse!"

I suppose it's on the theory that things could always be worse. I could have been stranded in the desert in the height of summer, with no water, with my dehydrated corpse being eaten by scorpions and coyotes, Jawas carrying my SUV off into the twin sunset.

The worst part was the two and half hour delay. But, I ended up with the moon shining through my moon roof over Nevada, so it wasn't too bad.

"There's nothing to see..."

Tatooine didn't have billboards, but wow, does Utah have them. I guess they haven't heard about the highway beautification drive that started back in the 60's. Oh I forgot, the 60's haven't happened there yet. And Salt Lake City must hold the record of the number of bridal related billboards. Of course, it is Utah, the birthplace of the slogan "Marry early and marry often!"

"Any ideas?" "I don't know, where are we?"

Idaho was much better, I only saw one billboard, and although it was huge, it simply said, "buyhashbrowns.com". An intriguing idea, since I like hash browns, and I prefer shopping online to shopping in stores by about a million to one. But what I really prefer is to have my hashbrowns served to me on the side of cheese omelet in Dex's Diner.

The road got messy in Idaho, though. Parts of Interstate 15 looked as if they hadn't been plowed lately. But finally, after climbing a few hills, I crested the continental divide and on the other side was Montana! I swear by the Force that binds us, "Big Sky Country" is not just an expression. On that high mountain plateau, the snow capped mountains around me, that big, blue sky took my breath away. It helps that the air is clean and you can actually see the sky...

"And you said it was pretty here!"

And it is. Today, the last leg of the journey included a trip around Flathead Lake. The water was glistening, the snow fields so bright that I was reaching for my sunglasses and I was already wearing them... frozen ponds, an owl on a phone pole, big birds fishing in the stream... and more of that big blue sky...

I guess Earth travel isn't so bad after all!