Libre Monday morning…

and away by 9:23; CR 520 to

160 to Fort Garland, west, west…

Wolf Creek Pass and

down; Pagosa Springs horrible but not the horror it was in summer plus awhile later we

found a fortuitous lunch spot on Ute lands near Chimney Rock.

Then Durango and

Cortez, where if I hadn’t recognized the gas station we came in on last June

we’d never have found Highway 491 to Dove Creek and

out of Colorado to Monticello [not shown],

Utah.

Utah;

191north to I-70 to Floy then

west to Green River’s Tamarisk, eight hours or so out from Libre, for a restful dinner con vino.

Morning…Green River and west

over the San Rafael Swell,

to Temple Mount exit

for Dogs’ sake…

More 70 to Salina, gas, 50 wetly west to Scipio

and the interstate, 50 to Delta where the Rancher was sadly much diminished –

the aging waitress having difficulty keeping it together, the even older cooking oil rendering rancid anything cooked in it…such a breakfast! Clearly it was time to cross the Western Desert

to Nevada for dogs’ sakes

and on; gas in Ely, a little beyond Eureka to Robert’s Creek Road for lunch,

then 50 again for wide wide loads.  Mining working for Nevada

and after that, Austin.  Never a favorite…

so into Fallon, 10 1/2 hours by the time we checked in to find the Holiday Inn Express had us on the third floor far from the door, arrr…went downtown to a friend’s recommended restaurant [Chinese [?] only to find a forty minute wait, way too long after so long on the road.

The very nice hostess, however, pointed out  La Fiesta across the street, familial Mexican, again unlike any we’d ever had and quite hospitably wonderful to our dim and -inished states. Well cared for we staggered back to the motel, seriously schlepped three floors up uneasy about the Extra Dog [she doesn’t count because she’s ‘retired’, right?] as well the inconvenience of serially non-functional “keys” but, ah, eventually ensconced and showered watched a little trash TV and slept, I better than L the worrier.

Next morning schlepped and smuggled in reverse down the stairs and made it to NAPA in Fernley for a Tundra battery before breakfast at the Wigwam, still good as ever but moribund in the covid era…no salad bar but we weren’t having salad anyway [there’d been no salad bar at the Tamarisk, either, but they made a generous substitution], the usual simple eggs for me and an omelette for L.

Linda drove the last stretch; Pyramid Lake, 447 past Snoopy to Gerlach and on

to our Final Destination in time for lunch,

quesadillas nicely fortified with burrito verde remnants from La Fiesta.