June 26th, out the gate at eight…
447 to Pyramid Lake, pelicans in Nixon,
50 east through greater Fallon,
Fallon itself,
its outskirts
and extreme outskirts.
Subsequently Middlegate,
Cold Springs,
Trumpian Austin a bit shy of noon.
We nooned on Bob Scott summit, then east through Eureka.
Ely, gas as always, and
across the Western Desert, 107 out there; Utah.
By six-thirty Salina, I-70, 80 mph speed limit,
descended into Green River around eight for
dinner by the river as the sun sank in the wets, not wet at all out there.
Morning promised more of the same; we fled to Colorado and
Rabbit Valley, our traditional dogwalk up the Trail Through Time
before finally finding, after decades of this, a decent breakfast…in Fruita! Camilla’s Kaffe on the quiet main street sitting on the patio next to three midlife dudes in shorts talking bikes, hikes and four-teeners before heading off for work in an F-250 with a toy poodle in the backseat.
After that Grand junction where now that the change they seemed to want has come all the
impressive “President Trump” graffitti and giant flags have strangely vanished though things
seem quite strangely unchanged, for the present anyway.
Delta, then Montrose [not shown]; through the Gunnison and over Monarch to the Salida Safeway for a week’s provisions, a parking lot lunch of leftover omelette and,
although the Fourth was nowhere in sight, intense recreational traffic down the Arkansas
to finally abandon 50 at Cotopaxi for Westcliffe, last gas, Huerfano County and home…
Grasses rampant, smokey air, unaccustomed allergies, but quiet.
awaiting rain
later…
I remember Idaho to California going back into the late 50s, and it was always “gas in Ely”. According to your eye it all looks just about the same. I completely get the appeal. I think I still have one long Western drive in me.
…and with your Tacoma you till have the vehicle for it.
looks unbearably hot….
Not 121 yet!
Just looking at those little, and to me, forlorn communities……..no wonder they thought they were doing something great attaching themselves to a successful businessman. The only change they’re going to get is going to be from a machine. It is really a different world!
You forgot the quotes around “businessman”….and of course the change a lot of them are getting IS from a machine, but machinery they lack the education to operate, let alone build as the ongoing mechanization of more and more of the world outside those tiny lost places continues apace.
I love the lone Main St sign in an almost empty lone town, and the one of the turquoise house with rounded corners. I’ve never seen that, the inside rooms must be interesting.
Stephen