Thursday, a day late with heavy head and a cold last walk around the ponds, we set out

for the Gerlach Post Office, grapefruits in Fernley and gas in Fallon after which L drove

east into the West.

We lunched one pass shy of Austin, the latter having had some of yesterday’s snow and

had typically failed to clean it up.  Otherwise it was dry roads and dirty windshields to Ely

at which point I took over, ending the day on the Utah line as probably the only guests at

the Border Inn where their nighttime TV was extremely odd; an hour chronicling Trump parodists followed by a brief but unwatchable slice of some hopelessly cliched Second World War movie which turned out to have been “Saving Private Ryan”. Holy Sheep; wasn’t that one actually intended to be a send-up of every awful WWll film ever, really?  It not being Mel Brooks we passed in favor of Fox’s Salt Lake City news and weather, the latter looking iffy to the north

but, albeit bitterly cold, ok for us; we brought in all the ice chests so the food wouldn’t freeze

and it didn’t. The next morning in just over an hour [plus of course the hour lost crossing the border] we were at The Rancher in Delta, where breakfast among the ranchers [nine a.m.

seeming to be when all those beefy bearded guys come in for theirs] took about another hour

and then it was another to Salina for gas which literally

pumped barely a gallon a minute

so that took awhile as well.  From Salina L., drove into Colorado for lunch at the Trail

Through Time and on through Grand Junk-shun, Land of Many Things, which on the Friday before Christmas was truly a Shoppers’ Chaos, no one shunning the junk there, oh no way!

South on 50 I shot randomly into the sun until taking over at Montrose for dry roads

into and over the mountains [Gunnison Reservoir low and almost all open water; Monarch Pass in the dark] to Salida for lodging, remarkably good food at The Fritz and the usual strange

local TV*, Friday night’s weather looking like we wouldn’t be getting any.  Next morning Safeway for a week’s groceries, breakfast by the river at yet again a new place for us and new venue

for the local farm to table outfit, Seasons,, which will hopefully survive until our next trip.

L. navigated down the Arkansas, eventually passing the Slow Texan [and his many Followers] whom we overtook again upon entering the Huerfano thanks to the Timid Pickup on Ice

coming up from Cotopaxi and a lengthy fueling stop in Westcliffe before

the Gardner P.O. symmetrically rounded out our trip prior to a last lap of dry hills, dry dry hills,

up to Libre for unloading, unpacking, warming the house [as well as its Mice] and early to bed…

A Holiday soon followed, utterly low-key.

*All TV is strange if one is unaccustomed to watching it, of course.