Life is a Highway

We are traveling across Route 50 which is known as the Loneliest Road in America. We say Maine is rural but you haven’t seen anything until you’ve traveled here. As a result of the ruralness we had a hard time finding a place to stay. Last night stayed “off the grid” in a place called Hidden Canyon Retreat. It had electricity and satellite TV (Randy got to watch the Bruins game) but no cell service and internet was spotty at best. It was pretty though. On our way there we decided to take a side trip to Price, UT to a Paleontology Museum. There are a lot of dinosaur quarries in Northwestern Colorado and Utah. It really was quite interesting and impressive for a very small community.

Today, we are in a little town of Eureka, NV, population 315. It is know as the Friendliest Town on the Loneliest Road. On our way here we went to Great Basin NP only to realize we had needed reservations to tour the caves there and the road to the highest summit was closed. :(. Went part way up the mountain and did have some beautiful views of the Great Basin. The Great Basin is what we have been traveling through and stretches from Utah to California. It has a beauty all of it’s own but very few people live here – hence, the loneliest road.

In the town of Ely we stopped at a train museum. It had been a very active town up until the 1980’s when the trains discontinued. The trains were known not only for opening the west but were a critical part of copper mining in this area. It was a fun museum and we were able to go into the train maintenance and repair shop where they refurbished the old train engines. Not something we would have planned to do but turned out to be very educational and fun.

We are running into challenges with road closures – especially in NP – due to snow. We were going to go to Lassen NP in California and Crater Lake NP in Oregon but they are both closed. Similar to today when the road to the summit of Wheeler Mountain was closed. Not sure if I mentioned this before but we feel like we are a couple of weeks too early. If we had waited though, we would have run into more crowds and that creates it’s own challenges.

On to Reno tomorrow. Scroll down for updated pictures.

The past couple of days have been interesting for sure. Yesterday was a day full of travel challenges. We left Durango and took what is called the Million Dollar Highway to Montrose, CO. This highway reaches an elevation of nearly 11,000 ft, has hairpin turns and drop offs and no guard rails. And we got to do it in the snow. At one point the temperature outside was 17 degrees and we were going 19 MPH. Plows had been out but it was still wet and snow covered at times which made you question how slippery it might be. Once we were out of the snow, it was beautiful.

Then we went to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP (still in Colorado). The wind was blowing so hard and it was brutally cold. Really couldn’t enjoy this park to it’s fullest and didn’t even go all the way through it because we were behind schedule and it was so cold.

So we headed to Moab, UT over a secondary road. Part way there, there was an accident which closed the road for 3 hours so had to turn around and take an “alternative route” over yet another mountain on a dirt road. So what was supposed to be an 8 hour day turned into an 11 hour one. I was sooooo ready to be out of that Jeep.

Today was the reward for all the trials of yesterday. We are in Moab and did Arches NP, which we have been to before. But today we did a 3.2 mile hike to Delicate Arch. It was challenging but so worth it in the end. I am so proud of Randy for hanging in there during the narrow part of the trail and making it to the end. (He struggles with heights). And, it was a gorgeous day. Love that there is still snow on the mountains (when we aren’t driving through it.). Mom always said when she traveled that she loved the snow capped mountains and now I know why.

Have been so blessed with seeing beautiful country and learning so much.

Leaving Moab tomorrow with no specific destination. Just heading toward Reno, NV as we are seeing my cousin there on Friday. No destination is the best kind of day. Thanks for your comments. We love them. And we are still looking for songs to add to our Road Trip playlist.

We’ve had a busy couple of days. From Salida, we decided to go all the way to Durango and spend 2 nights here.

We had it all yesterday – sun, sand, mountains, rain and snow. We stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Park. It’s hard to describe some of these places and I’ve run out of other words for beautiful and amazing. Great Sand Dunes is a huge dune area with some of the highest sand dunes in North America. And they are at the foot of the Santa de Christi mountains so they look completely out of context with their surroundings. You can see from the pictures that the people climbing them are just little dots compared to them. We went up the lowest one and allowed that was enough.

Today we went to Mesa Verde NP where the Pueblo Indians once lived in the cliffs. We were unable to go to the cliff dwellings. You could only do that with a Ranger tour and they didn’t start until tomorrow. We were able to see the dwellings from the overlooks and they had a very nice museum them. I think Randy read every exhibit so we wouldn’t have time for the hike I had wanted to do. From there we went to the 4 corners where Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona come together. Not much there other than to say you’ve been there. And we acted like the tourist we are and had someone take our picture. This was one of those “down days” where we spent 8 hours exploring and traveled about 250 miles round trip back to where we started

On to Moab, UT tomorrow. Check out the pictures below and drop us a comment if you wish by clicking the title of the post in the comment section.