Shelter From the Storm
The sky looked ominous all day as we procrastinated leaving, stopping by shops in town, working on the blog at the library, etc. We contemplated staying around for another day, but the sun broke through the clouds and we set out down the road into what we anticipated to be four days of no grocery stores, restaurants, or any other services. About 10 minutes down the road, at the edge of town, the wind picked up and the clouds came back, but we continued on. There was one last small town, Boulder, about 12 miles down the road and we figured we could stop there if the weather really turned bad. Right as we hit the halfway point, the clouds closed in and it started pouring. We pushed on hoping we could make it past the storm, but it just got stronger and stronger. Suddenly, we were getting pelted by pea and marble sized hail and we started to look for a place to duck into for shelter. With no other options we ducked into the Pinedale airport and turned off the road. It was a small airport but we found the main office and stepped inside, soaking wet and cold but out of the storm. Once the hail stopped and the weather calmed, we continued on to Boulder, hoping to find a hotel room where we could spend the night, dry off and wait for better weather. However, when we got there we found that the one motel was completely booked and the other “hotel” in town was only a temporary residence for the oil workers. We were able to get a warm meal while we decided what to do and how to avoid heading out into 4 days of wilderness already wet and cold.
We found an available room 10 miles off route at Boulder Lake Lodge and decided that although it was a bit off route it was warm and dry and worth the trip. After our trek out to the lodge (which ended up being a little bit more uphill than we’d anticipated) we were very pleasantly surprised by the great hospitality offered by Paul, Clint and Thomas, extremely comfortable beds, and even some Euchre playing guests, Sharon, Larry and Casey! We stayed up late playing round after round of Euchre by the warm fire hoping for bad weather in the morning so we would have an excuse to spend another comfortable night at the lodge.
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