Well, my sister is super-sonic fast on the pictures, and uploaded them to her Flickr account…but I decided to add quite a few more pictures, and what better place to put 334 337 pictures than on Picasa? So, for your viewing pleasure, here they are.

I still can’t get over the beauty of snow, and how clean everything looks when there is just white softness over everything. And the thing that amazed me most is how we never knew it was snowing until we stepped outside, or until the parents would call and ask us if it was snowing, and then we’d look out the window while saying “No, it’s just clear and sunny…oh! Yeah! It is snowing!!!” That very rarely happens with rain, and I would have somehow expected the same of snow…but, no…it’s like a surprise everytime. (Well, to us, as Californians, anyway!)

*Above was our attempt at a snow-being. You know, we never knew it takes so much snow just to make one tiny little baby!

Wow, you people sure wrote up a storm while I was gone. In fact, it’s really more of an avalanche! How am I ever going to catch up with 283 new posts?! Oh, and I also have to catch up with my laundry. And I have stuff that’s been on hold for the local mosque. And I have to take my mom to her herbal health specialist. Sigh. The reading will be a welcome distraction in between ironing. Thanks!

The trip back home was awesome, partly coz I had the pleasure of driving half the time. There were two things about the driving that makes the road trip very different from when you are just the passenger: 1)you get a more pronounced feeling of jet-lag when you step out of the car onto ground for a change of drivers: everything bounces under your feet, perhaps due to all those changes in elevation that you speed through; and 2)coming into California, the change of pace in traffic really hits you between the eyes. All of a sudden, as soon as you get to CA’s first large city, the number of cars increases ten times, the freeways really widen up, and the two right-most lanes of traffic are practically devoted to 18-wheelers. All of a sudden, I felt like a foreigner to the state, almost completely overwhelmed, and quite tempted to wake my brother up to take over the driving.

Oh, and don’t tick off those truckers even accidentally. We left Utah at 2 in the morning, and it was completely dark, with barely any traffic. At one point, there was a truck in front of me, and I didn’t realize that the high beams from my headlights would make a difference to him, as far back as I was. Anyhow, eventually I was within 100 yards of him, and switched to low beams, then caught up to him, and then overtook him…at which point he got behind me, switched on his high beams, and rode behind me for five minutes with those super-bright lights bouncing off the mirror. I guess he was quite annoyed, but I did try to apologize by flicking my hazard lights! Cut me some slack, dude!

We visited a little bit around Salt Lake City, we were fascinated by the snow, and managed to build a few snowbabies (snowmen are hard to build so big!) and I took too many pictures to upload to Flickr just yet. I will sort through them over the next couple days and select the most worthy ones, hopefully.

My brother the Luddite with no internet connection in his house has brought us to the library so I can check my email and what-not. So, there is this dude sitting across from me and he is laughing out loud at the screen. Its quite weird, and I want to laugh, but sheesh, there are enough weirdos here. Oh, now he is helping out the guy next to him with spelling lessons. That’s nice of him…Oh, oops, they are Muslims, and they want to know where the nearest masjid is…lucky I just happen to be able to help loool.

Ah, so the cold is something else in this place. But, wow, is it beautiful or what? The white purity of the snow covering everything is just totally amazing, and makes the shocking cold totally worth enduring. I actually would not mind living here! It’s amazing the vast variety Allah has created for us to live in, for us to enjoy visiting, and for us to be in complete awe of. We drove thru a wee bit of Arizona, and the canyons there are filled with such might and with such noor, it is just unbelievable. After the bleakness of Nevada, it was quite breath-taking. Then we entered the snow of Utah, and it seems like this entire land is covered in soft, white, pillowy powder. Stepping out of the car, into the clear blue air, the icy cold was biting. I now know what cold really is! I love seeing this side of America, and it is quite an eye-opener for me. SubhanAllah walHamdulillah wa laa ilaaha illAllah wa Allahu Akbar!

I am also discovering all the luxuries I take for granted at home: the Firefox browser with Flickr Uploader installed for easily uploading millions of pictures; online access any time I want; mommy to take care of all the little household details; plus a roomy house and closet in which to “organize” all my copious amounts of junk….well, this is an awesome learning vacation…

And pictures will have to wait for a more suitable time…my time here is up now….toodles, peoples, and please remember me in your duaas, inshaAllah. (And thanks bunches for the comments on the previous posts, which I will get back to at home, in about a week’s time, I promise!)

Bags packed. SUV stuffed. Camera batteries charged up.Does the above make it sound like we’re headed on a road trip? Even if it doesn’t, well, we are. By the time this post self-publishes, we will hopefully be more than half-way to our vacation spot, to see what a real white winter looks and feels like. We are not likely to be online much, so we’ll say good-bye for now…with a promise to come back with pictures to make up for the time away.

Be good, write up a storm on your blogs for me to come back to, and send lots of warm, fuzzy thoughts my way, as I am certainly going to need them!

Love and Hugs,
The Nomadic One