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Published: July 22nd 2011
We could not make up our minds today. We had planned to drive to Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada, but Telenav was telling us it would take over four hours, so we needed to leave early. Jeff's internal clock got him up plenty early, but he was unsuccessful in getting me out of bed. Dad, does this sound at all familiar? I convinced him that it was silly to drive all that way just to spend an hour or so in a park, so he started pancakes and I tried to figure out what to do. Part of that was looking at what other vacation could include Great Basin. Unfortunately, Cedar City is the closest we will be to there in any logical future vacation, so after 9:00, we decide to go.
As it turns out, the drive was not that long, only 2 1/2 hours. In that whole drive, we only saw four towns, which may be why part of the drive, US 50 in Nevada, was name the Loneliest Road in America. There was nothing! The one gas station we saw had no attendant, just a vending machine.
Anyway, it turned out that we were
able to do a tour of Lehman Caves, one of the features of the park. Joseph, our guide, was very good. He was informative, yet entertaining, and kept things moving. I was surprised at how well Cole did since Joseph turned the lights out completely a couple times. There are many cool formations in the cave, including shields, which we have not seen so far.
We finished our visit to Great Basin with a drive up Wheeler Peak. There's a permanent glacier, which gave us another look at snow, and we climbed to nearly 14,000 feet. The views were quite stunning, although definitely different than what we've been used to.
I had planned to drive back through Nevada, but we decided to take the shorter route instead. We missed the turn for the Lund Highway, which would have led us by dozens of relatively easy caches. In the end, we headed straight for the Stadium 8 and watched Cars 2 in 3D. It was the boys' first movie in a theater and they loved it. It turned out to be a great day.
- - - - -
Today, we learned that Great Basin is an
endorheic basin, meaning that no water flows outside it.
We forgot a pencil sharpener, a problem since I brought some unsharpened pencils.
Conversation of the Day:
L - Good, there's no one in front of us.
J - There's no one we can see in front of us.
C - What?
J - There's almost always someone in front of us on the road.
C - There's always someone in front of us?
J - Almost always, unless you're at the end of the road.
Miles: 335
High Temperature: 85, in Garrison UT
Low Temperature: 50, in Lehman Caves UT
Geocaches Found: 7
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Tot: 0.242s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 66; dbt: 0.1056s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
