Tuesday first thing closing house, draining water, loading foods; away until December around 9:16 a.m.

Our usual Gunnison Reservoir lunch is followed by yet another pause for post-holiday roadwork before the mountains release us.

Delta is about the only, albeit brief, relief,

then more Western Sloping…which as ever fails to amuse [all that much]…

to the Trail Through Time, where dogs are confused and disappointed when crowds [a Texan even followed us off the freeway] preclude our usual stop. In Utah Westwater’s turnaround next to a pumping station, though typical, was not exactly…

what they had in mind.

One last lane closure, at 6:20 p.m. fer Moroni’s sake…

but finally, the Final Other Delta behind us,

Sevier [pron. “severe”] Lake

and the last pass [Utah ain’t great about identifying passes or elevations] before

…the border and the Border Inn where, eleven hours out of Libre and free of Utah, we stop for burgers and the night.

Rolled out around sunrise Wednesday…

right into more roadwork [though being first in line first thing in the morning yielded a pleasant and informative chat with the flagger].

After that Ely, from whence he came, for good breakfasts in the venerable Nevada Hotel,

then Eureka, wherein resides our marriage license, and Austin, where Serbs favor Trump.

We let the dogs out at New Pass Summit before the long run into Fallon’s sprawl, subsequent Fernley groceries [for Wall] and the vestigial remains of the once-mighty Truck Inn.

I meant to record more Burners truckin’ in on 447 but after Nixon the oncoming onslaught was too sketchy to risk it…rolling steadily up the desert behind two evenly spaced trucks clocking 80  as California amateurs pulled unaccustomed trailers right across the road between one and the next of us being just one cautionary instance. Fortunately the Tacoma has excellent brakes or I wouldn’t be writing this…uh, did I say “amateurs”?  Another “a”-word comes to mind; assholes with no business fumbling around in equipment they have no idea how to use, and lots of ’em. At the post office Jola said there were three rollovers between Gerlach and Wadsworth the day before…of course they’ll all be covered up by the Burnocracy, who are emphatically not amateurs.  As for that other designation, however…

After the P.O., though, nobody no mo’…

[except Twisto on the desert, gone by morning]

and we be glad to have survived to another sunset.

 

M