The Windmill Posts

The Long Way Home to Myself

recent posts

  • Nevada Kedavra, Part 1

    Nevada Kedavra, Part 1

    Beauty of the desert

    Beyond my original destination, a large part of this trip is about beauty. That can be in the shape of a classic that old Volkswagen Microbus or the vastness of the loneliness and the searing heat.

    Finding the beauty in the desert is less about getting used to it or having it become a background. It’s more of an acceptance of it and a connection with it. Everything may not excite and astound me as much as the first time I saw it. But it does in different ways, different experiences and unusual adventures. I felt a really great positive influence from the environment. The hills, the shrubs, trees and mountains. So many different colors of rock, ground, gravel, and anything else they can throw at you.

    “I am officially in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing but sagebrush and horizon in every single direction. It is both incredibly beautiful and slightly terrifying.“

    There is an incredible sense of timelessness out here. The mountains look exactly the same as they did a thousand years ago, and probably how they’ll look a thousand years from now. There’s a strange comfort in how completely isolated it is out here. No service, no traffic, just the open road and the sound of the wind.

    Some other amazing things I encountered:

    • My first night I heard an owl hooting.
    • I am genuinely surprised by how much life there actually is out here if you keep your eyes peeled. I just saw a hawk resting on a fence post scanning the brush.
    • A massive canyon opening up to my right side. The rock layers are perfectly defined in shades of red, orange, and deep brown. It looks like a miniature Grand Canyon right along the route.
    • A salt flat that stretches out for miles, completely flat and white, reflecting the sun like a sheet of ice.
    • There are these huge Joshua trees scattered all over the landscape here. They have incredibly bizarre, twisted branches reaching up. It feels like driving through a Dr. Seuss book.
    • Woke up early to catch the sunrise over the basin. The colors shifting across the rocks from deep purple to bright gold—absolutely worth waking up early for.
    • The mountain directly ahead of me is massive. It looks like it has snow on top, which seems crazy given the temperature down here. Must be Wheeler Peak.
    A driver’s dream!

    Loneliest road in America

    “The loneliest road in America, Highway 50. Here we go.”

    In a 1986 Life magazine article, a writer branded it “The Loneliest Road in America” due to its extreme isolation, vast stretches of empty desert, mountain passes, and a severe lack of gas stations or civilization for over 100 miles. The article infamously warned readers that there were “no points of interest” and advised travelers to bring survival skills.

    In planning the trip I had already sketched out following that path, but once I read about it’s legend, I was all in. With today’s modern conveniences like air conditioning, GPS, and door dash (I hear they’re investing in deserts soon) we don’t need any of those survival skills. Honestly, you don’t really need the GPS, because it’s a straight line with few offshoots. It’s so lonely the adopt-a-highway signs are often very blank.

    So far the loneliest road has not been that lonely. I can usually see a car in front of or behind me or both. I’ve only had to pass, well, actually, I’m not sure I had to pass anybody. The time I was behind the motor home, I pulled off to take the top down after the car wash. (Oh yeah, I got a car wash in the last big city) The other time was following motorcyclists and I figured I was going to have to pass them. But then we hit Eureka and they stopped because they required a road beer apparently.

    But now, I am in a 70 mph zone. And I’ve got a guy going 56 miles an hour. I have no idea where he’s going. But if the country rule applies they’re going to pull off soon, eventually. The country rule of course being no matter who it is or what they looks like look like, If they’re on a country highway, they’re not likely long distance drivers and they’re going to turn sooner than later. So if the country rule applies here, this guy’s going to pull off any second. Coming up to another pass though, so I doubt it. But after the pass, I shall swerve him and pass.

    The Nevada desert, on a map, is a truly lonely thing. Highway 50 looks almost as boring as it can get. It just doesn’t make sense, but my experience both going west now, and east later, was wonderful. It was nowhere near lonely, for better or worse. And it contained some amazing views and experiences. If I were ever to “go desert” as a family member worried, I think it would be Nevada. But that’s not going to happen any time soon. Maybe after a few more visits..

    Continued in Part 2..

    Seemingly endless repetition – unless you slow down and look closer
    This will come up later, but I had never heard of a Marmot before, I’m pretty sure
    Leaving Utah Behind!
    Rocinante, freshly cleaned and ready to get dusty in the desert!

  • Home, sweet home!

    Home, sweet home!

    Well, after 6,300 miles, 16 state borders crossed, 17 souvenir magnets, 18 sleeps, 1 ocean, half a dozen deserts, too many mountains to count, and one UPF 50+ sun protection panama hat – I’m home!

    Remote for Scale

    Wait, what? Weren’t I just in California? Yes, it looks like that. By the time I got to California I got behind in transcribing my recordings and started to flounder in posts. And that’s where it sat. Since then, every time I’ve been in a hotel I’ve been working with (no kidding) an AI system to transcribe the recordings and help me organize them so I can stitch them into a proper narrative. Gemini helped immensely, and now I’ve a great system for future trips. And if I haven’t covered it, I have a small (thumb sized) recorder that I have on a lanyard so at any moment I can speak a note or memory into it. Originally for dealing with memory issues, it’s turned out to be a great travel note taker.

    Beautiful, remote, and a 10 ms ping!

    I also didn’t consider the fact that over half my overnights were camping, and wouldn’t have electricity, internet coverage, or even somewhere comfortable to type! Although there was a campground in Colorado that was 10,000 feet up a mountain that had the strongest and clearest 5G signal I’ve ever seen! It was surrounded by ski resorts and apparently a high class clientele expects high class cell coverage!

    My task from here on out is a bit of post-trip therapy. By going over the notes and typing my story, it’ll hopefully help cement the memories and let me enjoy them in the future. If you’d like, you can ignore this post and imagine I’m still on the road. I’ll do my best to be timely!

    The header image is my backup pocket tool! Oh I missed it so!

  • Signs of life!

    Signs of life!

    It’s been a crazy couple of days. Many miles and many adventures. Here are two tales to keep you patiently waiting for real content. The photo above is my current view. That view plus 5G? I’ll take it!

    Dancing in the moonlight

    Canyonlands National Park was one of the remotest locations I enjoyed. The road from the highway to the park is 34 miles. They mean it when they go big. When I checked in I talked with the ranger at the booth and she said the campground was pretty empty, no issues except one of the sites has a resident rattlesnake. I checked my reservation. What luck! She said it hadn’t been seen in a day or more, so it might not be an issue. Just stay away from the bushes. If I wanted to check it out or pick another site, she said I could choose.

    Not at Canyonlands, but close, if I recall. Hi Coyote!

    I drive out and the site assigned to me had a neighbor who was really quite close. I walked around and hoped to hear hissing but nothing came up. Still, I was a little apprehensive, so I went for another site. The loop ran around a huge rock formation (you can scuttle up top) and I chose a spot with a great view and no neighbors for a long ways. After I set up I went for a walk to check out the toilet situation. Imagine my surprise when they had flush bathrooms! So much for primitive. Distant, but comfortable.

    It’s another one of the official Darkness Zones, so the night sky is supposed to be amazing. I did the whole dinner thing and spent time typing, but went to bed early, setting an alarm for midnight so I could see the stars.

    Except the moon was out. Like a stadium light it was so bright. Shadows and all. Went back to bed, set an alarm for 2, same deal. Finally at 4 the moon was going down mostly, so I got my blanket out, laid it out on the picnic table with my pillow, and laid back to look at the stars. Worth it. Oh and the ground temperature the day before was 138 so it was nice and warm. Look it up, it’s a thing.

    Double Triple Breathtaking

    The altitude around here is high anyway, so when you do a pass (drive over a mountain) you get to altitudes well above 10,000. The gold mountain fire smoke was around, as well. Both of those affect your breathing, right? I found a third.

    I love driving. I love driving switchbacks. I love beautiful views from mountains. But today apparently we set all of that aside. As I was going over the Slumgullion pass, the edges of the outside bounds of the turns started to be closer, and with less protection (guards, etc.) so it felt and looked like the very edge of the road was the very edge of the mountain. It started to bother me a bit, and eventually I started working on a nice panic attack – the ones where you can’t breathe. Eventually I was going around those curves so slowly, and finally I just kinda locked up. It was like I forgot how to drive, and I just stopped. After a few seconds I came back to my senses, but I was still freaking out. I stopped at a pullout to take a breath and drink some water, but I was nowhere near the summit. I knew there was no way to avoid it, so I set off again.

    No locking up, but I was having a lot of problems breathing and just feeling like I was about to fall off the mountain. I saw an official turnout/scenic view, and pulled off there. I parked and took some water and walked around, did the 12345 counting skill, and basically tried my best to get reasonable so I could get down the mountain. I did take a PRN which helped, but didn’t take much because I was driving.

    I found my zen and put on Sigur Ros and headed down the mountain. Mostly breathing again, I continued on the route north, working on becoming comfortable with those bare edges. (There weren’t that many from there on. However, it was the beginning of an exciting road. Image show my arrow backwards, I had the northern part remaining!

  • Utah, hot and bothered

    A long driving day, with some old bones to keep me interested halfway there.

    Dinosaur National Monument

    Wide expanses with surrounding mountains. They have names but you have to squint to see them on a map. The hills are so tall they make these huge desert spaces seem small. That’s not thoughThese expanses, fully dwarfed by the hills behind them, they’re very tall. And they look like some sawtooth because it looks like they have holes in them. I don’t know if there’s really holes or not, but it’s—it’s very impressive.

    I stopped at the visitor center, which led me to the other visitor center, where you can take a shuttle to the visitor center. Sorry, not quarry but shuttle. I talked to a person, a real-life person. It was a guy on a motorcycle and he was traveling across the country. I don’t remember why. And he had a veteran card, too. We talked about that, and yeah, it was very social. Are those Sawtooth Mountains?

    Sound of Silence Trail

    Sound of Silence trail. All sorts of warnings. Set a timer for 15 minutes to turn back. It’s not silent because there’s wind. It’s like Orfield quiet here. Except for the wind and the occasional, possibly jet plane, fighter, whatever. It’s pretty. I saw a little lizard running across the path. No rattlesnakes. All of the snakes that I was very assuredly seeing tend to be wood roots. Not as exciting, but probably safer.

    Sound of Silence has cooked me enough that I don’t know that I’m going to be getting out of the car again. Unless, of course, there’s something more interesting. Blah blah. See, I always figure with the convertible, you’re exposed to the sun, but if you’re always moving, the sun doesn’t have a chance to get you, and has to start all over again. So you shouldn’t get sunburned at all. Really, faulty logic.

    Heading West

    Let’s play smoke or sand. I was really hoping for smoke, and then I saw the sand twister over on my left. We’ll see how it goes. 95 is the highest temperature so far. Straight lines through… I mean, I don’t know how you couldn’t call it a desert. Uh, hot, super hot. Very windy. And the hills are interesting, but not notable. Lots of passing lanes. Lots of them.

    Fred Hayes State Park of Starvation. Wind picked up in Utah. And I know that because I’m enjoying the anti-displacement aspect of my vehicle. But it’s okay, I managed. We’re on a bridge that crosses Starvation… Starvation Lake. Has anybody searched for His Whispering Eye anywhere?

    The wind blows cooler here past the winery. A Lamborghini decided he was just over it, passed everybody in the oncoming lane. Just went over a hill or mountain or whatever. Elevation 6700 something. Yeah, these big curves that require strength and widening really are delightful. They have all these lakes and reservoirs and things like that, but there’s no life to them. No boats, no people, no docks, nothing. I miss navigable bodies of water.

    Used the kickdown to pass a guy, and it got really scary, including the second time I hit it. Uh, I was going really fast and it’s a little twitchy, and did not feel comfortable. Desert warmed water does not taste good at all. Oh no, why is the car rocking? Oh, it’s the wind. 88 degrees and I’m trying to figure out how long it will take for the car to fill with cold air. It’s nice to see that Utah doesn’t know how to do a passing lane either. More likely they know what they’re talking about but they don’t. If you sat a five-year-old down and asked them to describe the space program, that doesn’t make it real.

    Except for the cars, this cross over the mountain from that one city where the ice was, to Salt Lake City is quite nice. It’s been fun. Up and down and then left and right, all of that. And when I get to the hotel, let’s play how the **** do I turn this light on?

    The Highway & The Salt Flats

    Another car wash so I can see through the front window. And it moves around me, and it’s making noises.

    Utah major highway. I love when lanes compress. A vehicle will be following another vehicle, usually a truck, for a very long time, and then all of a sudden throw on their turn signals and jam over to the next lane and then go past them. Almost like a “Okay, I’m tired of this. Screw this, I’m moving on.”

    The mountains are all grassy, and it reminds me of Oahu. I’m headed to Ely via the Great Basin, but Ely in general. And I just went through one of the last towns, wasn’t that big. But as I got back on the road here, the sign showed that Ely was 150 miles away. So all I got to do is drive to Duluth. Next services 83 miles.

    More bikers in tight pants just riding along the highway in the literal middle of a freaking desert. 80-some degrees out. Okay, the temperature is 85, but the sun makes it feel like it’s 100 and something. So part of my theory is that it’s the sun’s rays that affect us most in the desert, not the heat necessarily. But in my case specifically, is it that I’m riding in an open car for hours on end under that same sun that I’m having these reduced hallucinations? Two more groups of skinny pants bikers. I suppose it makes sense, it’s a very straight, flat road where people can pass each other safely and easily. Except for that whole under the desert sun part.

    The desert really is beautiful. Not just in the ordinary definition of the term and how people describe it. But it’s that it is this unforgiving, harsh land that it would be hard to imagine trying to farm or even ranch. And maybe that’s the payback for it being so beautiful. I’m seeing some sand that looks like sand dunes so maybe those will be starting here. Or is it a quarry?

    There is a huge white section to my left, so the south, and it looks like a salt flat. And those are cool and tasty. I took a taste of a salt flat once. Looking at the GPS display on the car, that whole white area looks like a blue lake. So I’m wondering if it’s a salt lake. Not the, but a. I see what looks like water over by the lake now.

    Border crossing coming up here pretty soon. Entering Nevada. I am officially in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing but sagebrush and horizon in every single direction. It is both incredibly beautiful and slightly terrifying.

    Pictures

    Landscapes

  • Wow! (language warning)

    I swear I’m working on content – literally right now. But thought I’d throw something out there as a sign of life. This is while I was driving from the Little A’Le’Inn to a different hotel in Vegas. (Long story, you’ll get it eventually)

    I was driving across the great flat desert, the line of road stretching perfectly straight to the mountains. I’m muttering into my recorder recording memories and this happened…

    I don’t know how many times you would have to drive way to get that to happen. I’m imagining him up there giggling at the MINI Cooper. And normally I have the top down, from 49 degrees earlier that day, to 104 today, it’s top down. Except I was low on gas and thought the profile would use less gas. Of COURSE it was then! I think it would have caused hearing damage though..

  • Lost on day 1, how we doing?

    Not very freaking well! (Just kidding, up at 3:30am and I’m rarin’ to go!). (waiting for the crash) It was my pocket tool, trying to get the valve cover off, and I “snapped it like a twig”. Happily I have a spare one at home, but I was not going to go home from edina and then through edina to leave again.

    This is the same pocket tool Lily has. I say has because her life is hers. It’s not like I’d be hurt (I would) if she didn’t use it. But it’s so useful! I studied long and hard to find this.

    I wanted:

    • Super small
    • pliers
    • scissors
    • screwdrivers, whatever
    • knife

    What I got:

    • All of the above
    • tweezers (for the lols) (but I have used them for tiny screws and such)
    • A “retail box opener” It’s a metal stick with a small diagonal blade at the end
    • Bottle opener

    I didn’t think much of it, just oh well it broke. Apprently it was more important than I thought. I reached for that thing for package opening, cutting paper or cardboard, jamming the screwdrivers into things to try and fix them but never using the screwdrivers for their intended purpose. The scissors even cut paper! It was a miracle of modern science. So when I’m out here in the wild and I need to do .. anything, I reach for it and it’s gone. Not even lost, so no hope that it will show up. I have a locking blade knife I got at F&F but honestly I paid too little and got junk. In order to unlock the blade and close it, you have to pull something over.. in front of the blade. Nice. I’ll make do for the trip, but it won’t be the same.

    Good thing I’ve got that spare!

    Other than that, this is how it’s going:

    It is so hard to understand the scale without seeing it in person.

  • The whole point

    The whole point

    Posting this quick update to let everyone know how it went. It went well!

    Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony – The Symphony of Sorrowful Song, was being performed in San Francisco on June 21st. This is the symphony I’ve listened to through Ketamine Therapy for years, and the perfect music for a rainy day. I have heard it on media so very many times, but never live. My theory is that it features a female vocalist singing in Polish, which may be hard to find. That and it’s the ultimate downer in classical music.

    I thought about flying out, but that’s really stressful, takes forever, and rental cars are a hassle. So rather than take 5 hours to get there, I drove. Seven days to get there and, well, more than that to get home.

    Excited, to say the least, As a mental health exercise I wasn’t concerned that I won’t like it, or that I’ll break down sobbing, or maybe none of those. It’s that I would hear it and not care.

    Well, I cared. I kept myself awake through the Chopin and others in the first half. And the introductions. But I really enjoyed the conductors explanation of things in a way I never knew, and will now hear in the music.

    From those first bow strings pulled across the double bass all the way up to the violins, it was familiar music but with so much more life and vibrancy. It’s an experience I won’t forget, no matter how hard my brain tries. I enjoyed watching the orchestra play, and I was impressed that as an all volunteer band, they managed to nail it with one rehearsal a week for eight weeks!

    The vocalist was a pretty lady who looked like she enjoyed what she did. She had this great smile on her face in the lead-up, like she knew what was coming and nobody else did. And when she sang it was technically well done, but also with a volume of natural life in there that made it sound genuine.

    I met this nice older couple seated next to me. He was bored, she was thrilled to be there, so she had a lot of fun chatting with me. One of those people who can get your life story without you knowing it. I wish they had invited me out for drinks (ginger ale) because I would have enjoyed her life story, as well.

    I think I’ll end there. The music was wonderful, and here are some pictures.

    Small orchestra, mostly just strings. The Herbst theater was a thing of beauty also

    One can never tell how long they will hold the ember or joy in their heart. I suppose that’s part of what makes it special. My heart has been difficult to get that ember in there and kept lit for a few years now. But tonight my heart is aflame and peaceful and happy. And it doesn’t matter how long it’s there, it’s that it was there at all that matters.

  • Pulled over, kinda

    I’ve been using Gemini (AI) to help me handle my transcriptions from the audio recorder. It’s been going wonderfully. I drop some files on Gemini, they get transcribed and then added to a google doc in my drive. Simply a dream, and makes one love AI.

    Until today, when Gemini decides they have never been able to add things to a google doc, or to drive. So I should just go type words somewhere else like it’s the olden days. Pay no attention to the AI overlord messing with our minds.

    It is clear there will be no post tonight, but I’ve taken to speaking out the content, not just quips to flesh out later. This should make creating posts and getting them out much, much faster. In the meantime, I’ll tell you a story to tide you over!

    Driving down the loneliest highway in America, highway 50. Yes, it’s lonely because there are very few towns on it. But good lord I had plenty of other vehicles to chat with. Not like it was crowded, but it wasn’t empty and desolate.

    I’m cruising down one of the straight stretches and see flashing red and blue lights, and another vehicle. The closer I get I realize the police or whomever are in the middle of the road. I start to wonder what is going on because it didn’t seem normal. I sllow downand eventually come to a stop. I’m thinking if there’s a gunfight I don’t want to be right there to enjoy it. One of the two cop cars comes up the highway at me, slows down and says “I’m going to need you to pull fully off the road. Oversize load.”

    I’m in a MINI Cooper. What part of oversize can you interpret from my size? Sure I have camping stuff etc. but nothing it sticking out. When I look back to see if he’s turning around to come give me a ticket for being oversized, I see he didn’t turn around. He’s going on and apparently doing the same thing to everyone. Clearly it’s a sting. They’re pulling everyone over for oversize loads and then looking for drugs?

    And then I saw more lights down the road – yellow this time – and a large orange object. It was a truck pulling a massive trailer. It said “oversize load” and I felt like an idiot. The lady in the car in front of me was out of her car ready to take pictures, so I got out to apply another layer of basting butter, er, sunscreen. I miss the photo of the oversized thing, but it was just a big gray box.

    Once it passed, we all hopped in our cars like the race flag had shown up again, and we were off!

  • Colorado, high there

    “Until death it is all life”

    Cervantes / Don Quixote

    I understand that quote to be along the lines of “Carpe Diem,” but in less of an empowering entitled white people in an expensive school sort of way. And to be honest I don’t like that movie because the vast majority of those kids are going to have life Carpe’d at them anyway. Because they’re wealthy and connected.

    Anyway, I feel it’s saying life is here until you die, you might as well use it. Less Don Quixote charging ahead and more Sancho Panza plodding behind.

    Colorado

    Camping is going well. I have yet to encounter dirt. It’s all been large wooden framed rectangular areas with I’m assuming dirt, but topped with gravel. The Rubber mallet makes quick work of the tent spikes – really happy I bought the heavy duty stakes. Oh wait, no, I had dirt in South Dakota/Nebraska and it was uneven and hard to tell where a tent was supposed to be.

    I went proper camping with my scooter friends. We obviously took our scoots and it was quite the adventure. There was quite a bit consumed, and lots of experimenting about how much alcohol can get in the fire before scaring us. At the end of the night I went to sleep and slept the sleep of the dead. (dead drunk) but it was that next morning when I discovered that “My Sleep Number is gravel.” Now, I’m not silly enough sleep directly on the ground, but it comforts me in knowing I could, except for the getting up in the morning part. I also like the gravel base because it’s flat. With just. a little shifting you can stand a water bottle up. And breaking camp seems easier somehow.

    There is a Colorado Welcome Center and it made me wonder where exactly I had been. Apparently Wyoming. And long enough to type about it in previous posts. The Colorado side has a welcome center and there’s a cannabis store in the town right there, and ice cream, and even a church. The Utah side has a sign saying ‘Welcome to Utah’. Same sign at both ends.

    Not much new wildlife to report, seeing plenty of antelope and birds but nothing incredible, like a Moose or a Marmot. The prairie gives way to hills which give way to larger and sharper hills which gave way to mountainettes which give way to proper mountains.

    Okay, I figured out what was driving me crazy. I’m driving on this highway, and there’s huge expanses to the left and right, and in the background there’s, you know, bigger hills. But there are houses and buildings and things all over these expanses, and it’s—it’s haphazard. It doesn’t seem to be a system to it. They’ll be, pointing one way or the other, close together or far apart. It’s very confusing.” If anyone wanted to bring order to those communities, they wouldn’t be able to draw a straight road.

    As far as roads, Colorado is pretty good. The roads out here aren’t horrible, they’re concrete or whatever. But when you hit a good long-ish blacktop stretch of buttery asphalt, it’s like French silk pie for a moment. You can go a long time without seeing anyone. This is how I wanted to cross America. One lane in each direction, middle of nowhere, often not seeing another vehicle for minutes, 20 minutes, whatever.

    Although they have these point-of-interest signs that don’t tell you what the point of interest is or how far away it is. And I stopped at one out of curiosity, and it was a sign about a fire in ’88, the biggest fire in Colorado. But better than that was just the scenery and the views—the East, I guess.”

    I love the twisties in California. The ups and downs, turns so tight a MINI Cooper thinks it might be tight. Ocean views and dropoffs to thrill. But good mountain passes have some intense turning magic. They’re often long. So if you’re leaning into the turn and using some amount of force on the wheel, you need to keep that up for whoeverknows how long, because these are mountains, baby! You also have the wind, which will make you sweat on one of those long curves, adding to the skill level swinging around them. If the California twisties had this kind of wind, it would totally change the game. And I think they do, and you can tell when by when they close the road.

    I’ve been known to widen curves here and there, but I just can’t do it on the big turns. Widening the curve means coming into the turn on the outside of the lane, and slowly moving to the tight spot, then easing back out to the outside. Ignore that, it was confusing. It means make curves easier sometimes.

    At the tops of those passes I was seeing snow – we were pretty far up! It was a treat after having watched so many mountains go by with snow on them, and now I was seeing it for real!

    BTW, cruise control works downhull too. I would rather not smell your braking system melt its face off as we enjoy the crowded lanes together.

    And here’s a funny: I’m driving, and the sun is behind me because sunrise, east and so on. And it’s giving me glare off of my displays. And I was just thinking, ‘Oh great, now I’ve got to sit all day with this glare on my displays.’”

    Tonights sleep was The Yampa River Valley, or whatever we want to call it. It’s a lot of hills. I don’t see mountains, really. I think there are some here and there. No snow caps. But it has this river going through it, and there are like trees and stuff around the river. And so it’s this weird switch between the green desert and the hanging forest.

    At the end of the day I am sitting at a campsite in my super comfortable chair which folds down to about the size of a groundhog. It’s the tree shade I was looking for. 85 degrees and I felt like I was burning everything visible. I did sunscreen today but will do it more often tomorrow. That’s the thing about this trip – it’s very desert based and I’m getting cooked. I will not compromise – unless it’s raining, the top stays down! Wind R Us!

    Pictures!

    Love this view
    The local grocery in Craig Colorado
    It’s the couple bars of 5G that makes me wonder..

  • So much to say, so little bandwidth..

    Camping tonight I’ve got 4G, will try and post something tonight if I can. It is kind of neat to be writing next to the fire.

    Here near to Steamboat Springs at an altitude of 6305 ft we have 85° and a really good breeze.  Hope you do too.

    Scott’s Bluff