Advertisement
Published: August 2nd 2013
Edit Blog Post
MOUNT RUSHMORE OR BUST
Teresa took this gem of a picture We were home from our World Voyage for over a month and figured it was about time to get on the road. Literally! We were going to the Black Hills of South Dakota for an Atkins Family Reunion. We briefly considered flying back to Rapid City, but why, when the whole western United States is a road tripper’s dream landscape.
We packed up our Honda Odyssey and headed east on a cool, foggy July morning. One of the best things about traveling by car versus airplane is that you can take whatever you might possibly need for several weeks without a second thought of Homeland Security. Stuff like clothes, computers, coolers filled with ice, gifts, maps, food, phones, books, water, tapes and DVDs and anything else deemed essential for a good road trip. And you can leave your shoes on!
We took I-80 to Sacramento with its gleaming capitol dome and maneuvered thru heavy traffic up to Stateline, Nevada and spent the first night with our friends, Mark, Barbara and Andrew for a night of cards and barbequing. Summer at Lake Tahoe is a wonderful affair with balmy days and crisp nights, soaring mountains and shimmering waters.
The
next morning, after a hearty breakfast cooked up by Mark, we passed through the Nevada capitol of Carson City. There we got on US Route 50, a transcontinental highway which ends in Ocean City, Maryland. Once called the “Loneliest Road in the America” by Life magazine, it lived up to its moniker this day. No trucks, few cars, lots of desert valleys and mountain ranges, wild horses and tumble weeds. We passed a warning sign for deer crossing and then one for horse crossing. Not 50 feet from that sign there was a horse on its side, stiff with rigor mortis and a few yards away there was a car with a smashed front end. Apparently one of the two didn’t get the memo.
It was a nice day for driving and we listened to the Giants and the Dodgers continue to do battle in their century old rivalry. Besides the casinos, I think the main crop in Nevada is prisons. At practically every town we passed, there was a sign warning against picking up hitchhikers and off in the distance buildings surrounded by high fences and concertina wire. Carlin, Wells, Lovelock are all penal towns. I’m sure the
ANDREW, MARK & BARBARA
Boating friends who live in Tahoe prisoners in Lovelock don’t love the locks that bind them. The most infamous inmate there is The Juice, O.J. Simpson.
We left behind bright lights of the last gaming town of Nevada and crossed into Utah to spend the night at Wendover. Its claim to fame is as the gateway to Bonneville Salt Flats Speedway. Our cruising friend Mike comes here every year and is a proud member of the 200MPH Club.
We set out early the next morning across Utah. We saw one rather surprising billboard which advertised “Girls, Girls, Girls…Lap Dancing $10…Salt Lake City.” I don’t think Brigham Young would have approved.
We skirted the Great Salt Lake and our third capitol city with the Mormon Tabernacle and Temple prominent in the distance. As we climbed the steep grade out of Salt Lake, we passed Olympic Park with several impressive ski jumps built for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
It doesn’t take long to get across Northern Utah as it is quite narrow at that point. So we soon cruised into Wyoming. This is the land of wide open spaces, beautiful buttes, snow fences and deer barriers and evidence of mining operations everywhere. Even though
DESERT MIRAGE
It looked like the hills were floating. it was the height of tourist season, there were relatively few cars on the road…probably more RVs than cars. Perhaps the price of fuel has kept everyone closer to home this summer. The highest price for gas that we saw was $4.49 when leaving California and the lowest was $3.35 in South Dakota.
We spent the night at a hot springs resort in Saratoga, Wyoming. We stayed there several years ago and really liked the old style cabins, the five teepee covered hot mineral springs and the large heated pool. There are outdoor fireplaces for the cool evenings and a nice restaurant filled with cowboys and animal trophies. These aren’t rhinestone cowboys here…they’re the real McCoy.
We drove through Medicine Bow National Forest the next day. Unfortunately, the forest has been infested with the mountain pine beetle. This epidemic has decimated woodlands throughout the Western United States and Canada. It looked to us as if 70-80% of the trees in Medicine Bow were infected thereby causing severe danger from falling trees and fire hazards, not to mention the enormous cost of removing millions of these dead trees.
Driving up from Cheyenne to Custer we noticed we were
down to a quarter of a tank of gas. We saw that the next town of Chugwater was about 20 miles away. Come to find out there is no gas in Chugwater. Last January 4th a guy covered his face with shoe polish, drove off the freeway and plowed into the only gas station and grocery store in town. The whole place exploded and burned to the ground. When asked why he did it, the guy said “The hot dogs were cold, the bathrooms were dirty and the girls needed warming up.” He’s now cooling his heels in jail. For the foreseeable future residents have to drive 25 miles each way for the nearest gas and food stores. Our fuel warning light came on but luckily we had just enough gas to coast into Wheatland and fill up.
We arrived in Custer, SD and met up with two of my sisters. Roberta and Judy had driven from Green Valley, AZ. We spent the night at the Bavarian Inn and had Wiener Schnitzel for dinner. It made me feel like yodeling.
Next up the big family reunion in Deadwood, South Dakota.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.067s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 18; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0402s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Kevin and Susan
Kevin&Susan
Wow!
What a beautiful blog! Love, Kevin