Flying to Sun Valley

I flew to Sun Valley on Friday to meet one of the requirements for my Instrument rating. It was my first time flying in crazy weather over mountainous terrain. We pretty much try to stay as far away from clouds as possible, but during this flight we didn't have much choice. The whole way was dodging mountains and clouds. We followed rivers and canyons to stay in areas with better visibility. It was a lot of fun. When we got to Sun Valley they gave us a courtesy car at the airport that we used to go buy some breakfast. My instructor and I ate at a diner called Shorty's. They had huge pancakes and the food was really good. After that we headed back to Boise. The weather got so bad that by the time we made it out of the mountains, we were happy to see the highway. We followed the highway back into Boise. We flew within a couple of hundred feet of the ground at about 130 mph. The cars we were passing on the highway with such low visibility probably thought we were crazy. By the time we got to Boise, weather was so bad that we ended up landing at the Boise ariport instead of Caldwell to wait out the storm. It was snowing and blowing about 30mph. We drank hot chocolate and hung out with some marines that had to cancel their practice drops from huge airplanes because of the weather. It took about 45 minutes to clear up before we could head back into Caldwell. The whole thing was a good learning exerience and a lot of fun.