This old state park got its name from an old ranching incident. A rancher fenced off what now is the state park for his horses. All his horses perished from lack of water; while they could look down the steep cliffs to the Colorado River. I crossed the Colorado River on US Hwy 191 and passed the facility built on a very bad superfund site. Arches had a line of cars waiting an hour or two to get in and I been there many times as it is a wonderful place...but not today. At the red rocks formation on the West side included the very unique Moab fault leading directly to the volcanic La Sal Mts. The East side of the fault had dropped down over 1500 feet (much still underground) compared to the West side ... read more

Driving Westbound on Interstate Hwy 70 in Utah; about twenty five miles West of Colorado is the tiny town of Cisco. There are no services there and no petro station. Cisco is a remote living community. I love the way the zip code on the Cisco Post Office is hand painted. There are two Interstate exits for Cisco, with the second one as the main exit on the very beautiful Utah 128 that runs through BLM Federal land with private ranches. The second half of Utah 128 runs by the Colorado River in a beautiful unnamed canyon that I call "Moab Canyon" cuz most of the traffic on that highway comes and leaves from Moab. completed Cisco; next blog Colorado River... read more

I still had a long drive from Monarch Pass to my first back-country camp on the West side of Kebler Pass. It was downhill all the way to Gunnison (US Hwy 50) where I got food and other supplies, ice, and petrol for three days of camping in the beautiful aspen trees. From the center of Gunnison I took Colorado Hwy 135 North to Crested Butte. I used to take a simple first left (West) turn to get on Gunnison County hwy 12 to Kebler Pass. Now Crested Butte has grown 1000 percent and I could not see a sign where to turn West with all the extra streets. I asked a nice local and he showed me where to turn. Leaving Crested Butte city limits I saw the first sign to Kebler Pass. Now the ... read more

Introduction: This is a start of my four week road trip in September 2017. It is my affordable adventure across the Four Corners States: Colorado, Utah. Arizona, and New Mexico. I wanted to see so many of the most scenic natural places on Mother Earth. I would be driving and camping in my small truck (Old Blue) off road in the back-country of the Rocky Mountains and the high desert. This was also a survival test for this old disabled man; requiring good teamwork between man and machine, and careful planning on water, supplies, and maps. At Ratan, New Mexico I drive up the mountains to Ratan Pass to an overlook at the Colorado State line on the Santa Fe Trail on Interstate Hwy 25. I continue to Main Street in Trinidad, Colorado still on the ... read more

According to the Cherokee County book, John Dial was a Civil War hero for the South serving under General "Stonewall" Jackson, then under General A P Hill. Later Dial served under General Robert E Lee all the way to Appomattox, Virginia. After that bad war John Dial returned to his homestead and found that General Sherman destroyed his home and farm. Dial then moved to Texas. According to TexasExcapes.com, in 1866 John J Dial arrived NW of Rusk, Texas and started farming. In 1882 the Kansas and Gulf Short Line Railroad reached Dial's area. In 1883 John deeded eight acres of his land to the railroad so they added a railroad stop there. Dial opened a general store there by the railroad. John applied for a Post Office in Dial, Texas in 1885; but there was ... read more

I was driving North to Nacogdoches and wanted to avoid the big traffic-jam at the South Nacogdoches Loop 224. The construction costing many millions of dollars was offset by very bad engineering that I call rickie parries folly. The sign on US Hwy 59 said County Road 525, but I knew it was Press Road. This is a dirt road with little traffic that follows the railroad to Lone Star Feed. There is mostly private property with some nice places to pull of the old road. There are some nice people there that would chat with me usually at the two railroad crossings. They told me that trains still use these old tracts, but they do not often see a train. I passed several pipeline (ROW) right of ways I got to the first railroad crossing ... read more