I thought we were finding sunshine, warmth, and happiness. Instead all we seem to be able to find is more snow and closed campgrounds. Not to be a Negative Nancy - Tahoe is absolutely drop dead gorgeous. Dan likens it to Geneva, and even though I've never been to Geneva, the accuracy of the analogy seems probable. Now I want to go to Geneva. Damn it. Sidetracked.
The previously sort-of-tried-and-kind-of-true method of driving around and finding somewhere to sleep failed - utterly and almost completely - last night. Everything in Nevada was hot and dry, and eminently camp-able. Lake Tahoe is not frozen, the city of South Lake Tahoe is not ice-covered and there is no snow in sight. Assuming this trend would carry over into the peaks surrounding the lake - which are also necessary to cross to get anywhere else - several wild goose chases ensued. Silly us, lakes surrounded by somewhere in the neighborhood of eight ski resorts which obviously still have snow on them probably do not have open campgrounds nearby. It's practically winter - mud season - here, too. Luckily the city of SLT operates a recreation area which includes a library, ice arena, lake shore access, and a campground (with running water! and trees! and shade!) for the whopping fee of $26/night. But this, being the only option, was the only option.
Henceforth, today's project has involved five hours in a coffee shop updating the world on our progress and actually planning (for a change) the next couple of nights. As much as nights spent camping in national forests and wilderness areas can be planned. Unfortunately, we have also realized that mountains in the rest of the country behave much like mountains in the Front Range in Colorado in that they are still snow-covered with roads and campgrounds closed for the season, in some cases until early June. Again, whoops. Woe unto us and our youthful naïveté.
5.06.2010
The Loneliest Road
5 May
Highway 50 follows for some time the Pony Express Trail. I can envision messengers riding through in the days of the Wild West. The trail is very straight - riding west, into the setting sun. Until, of course, you run into these hills...mountains? And the endless range of peaks ahead must have been daunting. To be honest, I can't imagine riding this trail. Long, straight, dry, hot, spliced at intervals by 10,000 foot ranges. No easy feat, it seems. Dried lakes brew into dust storms with standing pillars of sand clouds. These valleys should be more fertile given the prolific snowfall still evident in mid-May. As lonely as this road is today at least there's a promise of something to come - thanks to a map, or simply the infinite extension of asphalt ahead of you. But to be a pony express rider with only a dusty trail ahead of you, mountains ahead and behind, flatness all around, and a pack of messages, must have been unforgiving and never-ending.
Highway 50 follows for some time the Pony Express Trail. I can envision messengers riding through in the days of the Wild West. The trail is very straight - riding west, into the setting sun. Until, of course, you run into these hills...mountains? And the endless range of peaks ahead must have been daunting. To be honest, I can't imagine riding this trail. Long, straight, dry, hot, spliced at intervals by 10,000 foot ranges. No easy feat, it seems. Dried lakes brew into dust storms with standing pillars of sand clouds. These valleys should be more fertile given the prolific snowfall still evident in mid-May. As lonely as this road is today at least there's a promise of something to come - thanks to a map, or simply the infinite extension of asphalt ahead of you. But to be a pony express rider with only a dusty trail ahead of you, mountains ahead and behind, flatness all around, and a pack of messages, must have been unforgiving and never-ending.
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| From RoadTrip10 |
Another World
5 May
It's always bizarre to wake up somewhere so completely different from where you went to sleep. The shock of snow covered peaks in the near distance was a welcome surprise and much appreciated by my newly clean hair and body. Sayonara dusty desert sand! Unfortunately this haven in the middle of nowhere (at the junction of highways 93 and 50) is nothing if not smotheringly Republican: "Elect Anyone BUTT Harry Reid." (He is evidently blamed for the recent demise of Ely's coal mining industry. I still don't get it.) A couple steps out of their oversized Ford pickup: he in a "You Need Jesus" t-shirt, lighting a Marlboro - oh, the all-American boy - she in too-small jeans, flip flops, and a pink camo tank top. Pink. Camo. Tank top.
Our waitress at the Big Apple Restaurant? Diner? Eatery? was eboulliantly cheerful in a Midwest meets Pacific Northwest kind of way. Her infectious cheery earnestness went even farther when she told me I had beautiful hair. (See discourse on curly hair - it's in particularly fine form today.)
Departing the Big Apple establishment we discover Dan left laptop, cord, and sandals on top of car. Oops. That;s what happens when low blood sugar kicks in. Discovering this faux pas with a delectable mix of incredulity and hilarity - it's a miracle the laptop stayed during the quarter mile drive - and one sandal was missing, easily recovered in the Motel 6 parking lot. All errors rectified, back on the road. None other than Hwy 50, the infamous Loneliest Road. More never-ending scrubby sandstone desert. Impatiently awaiting the granite - and water! - of Tahoe.
It's always bizarre to wake up somewhere so completely different from where you went to sleep. The shock of snow covered peaks in the near distance was a welcome surprise and much appreciated by my newly clean hair and body. Sayonara dusty desert sand! Unfortunately this haven in the middle of nowhere (at the junction of highways 93 and 50) is nothing if not smotheringly Republican: "Elect Anyone BUTT Harry Reid." (He is evidently blamed for the recent demise of Ely's coal mining industry. I still don't get it.) A couple steps out of their oversized Ford pickup: he in a "You Need Jesus" t-shirt, lighting a Marlboro - oh, the all-American boy - she in too-small jeans, flip flops, and a pink camo tank top. Pink. Camo. Tank top.
Our waitress at the Big Apple Restaurant? Diner? Eatery? was eboulliantly cheerful in a Midwest meets Pacific Northwest kind of way. Her infectious cheery earnestness went even farther when she told me I had beautiful hair. (See discourse on curly hair - it's in particularly fine form today.)
Departing the Big Apple establishment we discover Dan left laptop, cord, and sandals on top of car. Oops. That;s what happens when low blood sugar kicks in. Discovering this faux pas with a delectable mix of incredulity and hilarity - it's a miracle the laptop stayed during the quarter mile drive - and one sandal was missing, easily recovered in the Motel 6 parking lot. All errors rectified, back on the road. None other than Hwy 50, the infamous Loneliest Road. More never-ending scrubby sandstone desert. Impatiently awaiting the granite - and water! - of Tahoe.
The Loneliest States
4 May
Jeff got wilderness permits for Coyote Buttes, the site of "the Wave," an impressive sandstone feature lost in the no-man's land between Utah and Arizona. Unfortunately, having a fever gets in the way of being a happy hiker, as does a distinct lack of iron and protein. Whoops. Also, crab-walking down desperately steep sandstone almost-cliffs means you get tons of sand in your underwear and then all you want to do is get the hell out of the desert.
Zion NP: Very pretty. Fun road, except for the idiot ahead of me trying to take pictures out his window while driving. A river! Flowing water! Hallelujah! And the National Park pass comes in handy because you have to pay the entry fee to drive through the park on UT 9.
St. George, UT: evidently one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country. All because of cotton. Which failed. This led to lots of wikipedia searches on Mormonism and Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, all leading to the conclusion that it's insanity. However, dinner was delicious: cupcake bakery slash restaurant. REALLY good cupcakes: sorry Daddy. Continuing the hunt for better weather, or at least less harsh terrain, here we are in Ely, Nevada - just a place to lay the head in the midst of elk-hunting territory. Ah, the life of a nomad. Cheap hotel rooms and extra long showers but the shower head is shorter than I am. Searching for greener pastures. The sunset was pretty but as far as I can tell all these states look the same as each other.
Jeff got wilderness permits for Coyote Buttes, the site of "the Wave," an impressive sandstone feature lost in the no-man's land between Utah and Arizona. Unfortunately, having a fever gets in the way of being a happy hiker, as does a distinct lack of iron and protein. Whoops. Also, crab-walking down desperately steep sandstone almost-cliffs means you get tons of sand in your underwear and then all you want to do is get the hell out of the desert.
Zion NP: Very pretty. Fun road, except for the idiot ahead of me trying to take pictures out his window while driving. A river! Flowing water! Hallelujah! And the National Park pass comes in handy because you have to pay the entry fee to drive through the park on UT 9.
St. George, UT: evidently one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country. All because of cotton. Which failed. This led to lots of wikipedia searches on Mormonism and Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, all leading to the conclusion that it's insanity. However, dinner was delicious: cupcake bakery slash restaurant. REALLY good cupcakes: sorry Daddy. Continuing the hunt for better weather, or at least less harsh terrain, here we are in Ely, Nevada - just a place to lay the head in the midst of elk-hunting territory. Ah, the life of a nomad. Cheap hotel rooms and extra long showers but the shower head is shorter than I am. Searching for greener pastures. The sunset was pretty but as far as I can tell all these states look the same as each other.
The Hunt for Better Weather
2 May
Chaco: HailSnowSleetSlushRain. We woke up with accumulation - ACCUMULATION - on the tent. Driving in clay = not easy. Bloomfield, NM: Sonya's Cookin' USA; Truckers Welcome!: this is what happens when you forget to pack food. Oops. Learned that lesson. Farmington, NM: Republican Headquarters of San Juan County.
State Border: AZ. Navajo Nation to Page. Alfonso's burritos: cheap and delicious, hiding near Safeway somewhere. Finding Jeff on a random side road in Southern Utah, camping on Bureau of Land Management lands for free. Wind and dust. Dust and wind.
Chaco: HailSnowSleetSlushRain. We woke up with accumulation - ACCUMULATION - on the tent. Driving in clay = not easy. Bloomfield, NM: Sonya's Cookin' USA; Truckers Welcome!: this is what happens when you forget to pack food. Oops. Learned that lesson. Farmington, NM: Republican Headquarters of San Juan County.
State Border: AZ. Navajo Nation to Page. Alfonso's burritos: cheap and delicious, hiding near Safeway somewhere. Finding Jeff on a random side road in Southern Utah, camping on Bureau of Land Management lands for free. Wind and dust. Dust and wind.
A Past
1 May
May Day! And no maypoles in sight.
Chaco Canyon
Once upon a time, about 12 years ago (a lifetime), I was here. Not necessarily here exactly, but pretty close.
When I was 10, I committed the number 41 (or was it 37?) to memory. Although it seems like everything here has changed in the last 12 years (how can ancient preservation sites change?) here I am again nestled in the fallen boulders against the cliff above campsite 41. I glanced around for the teardrop shaped rock behind which hides the secret cave in which I lost my Lion King watch. It was purple. I can't find it. Maybe a rock fell on it, or a pile of dirt in a torrential downpour. (Highly unlikely in such a desert.) I hate to think my 10-year-old's memory and the years since have become warped in some way.
This is a rediscovery, it seems, of parts of me, and I've already realized how much I've changed in 12 years. I've developed a sense of fear, and I've become a bit more jaded.
What happened to the little girl I was when I was 10? Maybe I'll find her here, where I left her.
May Day! And no maypoles in sight.
Chaco Canyon
Once upon a time, about 12 years ago (a lifetime), I was here. Not necessarily here exactly, but pretty close.
When I was 10, I committed the number 41 (or was it 37?) to memory. Although it seems like everything here has changed in the last 12 years (how can ancient preservation sites change?) here I am again nestled in the fallen boulders against the cliff above campsite 41. I glanced around for the teardrop shaped rock behind which hides the secret cave in which I lost my Lion King watch. It was purple. I can't find it. Maybe a rock fell on it, or a pile of dirt in a torrential downpour. (Highly unlikely in such a desert.) I hate to think my 10-year-old's memory and the years since have become warped in some way.
This is a rediscovery, it seems, of parts of me, and I've already realized how much I've changed in 12 years. I've developed a sense of fear, and I've become a bit more jaded.
What happened to the little girl I was when I was 10? Maybe I'll find her here, where I left her.
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