Christmas Adventure Turns Exciting! - Day Two

This morning I spied Chewbacca in the tree outside our bedroom window.  He looks very healthy, don't you think?  I was worried about him when Brian did some retrofitting to the Johnny Sack cabin that would prevent him from making it his winter home anymore.

So we went to church Sunday morning like always.  Well, not really like always.  Always assumes we go at 11 a.m. and drive in our nice clothes in a clean car, arrive early, enjoy church services, then go home without incident or event.  Not so this Sunday.  We got there in our dirty cars, just in time to strip off our snow gear and smooth out our helmet hair.  We sat down and enjoyed church services which consisted of a program of Christmas music performed by the ward choir and a talk by Elder Webb.   It was wonderful.  So was Sunday School and Relief Society/Priesthood meetings.  Sarah got to chat up all her old friends.  Brian and I said hello to some of our recently made friends.  Then on our way back to the ATV.

Keith and Jackie and Penny were the first ones to go in.  Just as they turned off the main road, the wheel fell off the ATV.  Fell off.  In the snow.  They called back to us.  The threesome made it back to the cabin on foot in falling snow up to their knees.  Luckily Penny slept through the entire thing!  Keith armed himself with water, a radio, tools and food and headed back to the ATV to try to lift the machine up high enough out of the 2 feet of powder with one arm, and then with the other arm, put the wheel back on.  Three of the four lug nuts had fallen off and one was stripped.  Luckily for him, three snowmobiles happened along and helped him out, then followed him back to the cars to the rest of us.  Brian and Keith checked things out, tightened the three remaining lug nuts down, then we headed off to see what parts stores were open on a Sunday.  In a remote area of Idaho.  Sure.  The day before Christmas Eve.  Oh well, we stayed warm in the truck at least.

No luck on a local parts store.  Back at the ATV we took it slow getting to the cabin in two trips. Then on Christmas Eve, Brian and Keith went back out and found the necessary lug nuts and studs, made the permanent repairs, and we were back in business.  Luckily this all happened in the daylight, when we were withing 3 miles of the cabin, and all of us were together.  This could have happened on any of Brian's 30 mile or so solo trips out into the snow earlier in the week when we were not there.  We are truly blessed, NOT lucky.

I am a Sea Star!  Baby Penny slept through the drama.

Kelsey's snow man