Monday there were bits of spitting snow and I don’t think we even walked the

dogs around the block though they did come up with me to turn off the water,

then, loaded up and another million details attended to,

we headed out a bit before eleven past Gardner Butte, Gardner,

over Pass Creek

and the residue of the Spring Creek Fire, first time since,

to light traffic on 160, gas in Fort Garland and pretty much nobody

down to San Luis, across the valley to Manassa,

285 to Antonito and

Dos Hermanas.

After a longish but quite satisfying lunch it was 17 west up the Conejos drainage and over

la Manga and Cumbres Passes in quick succession, not a vehicle in sight,

and down to Chama where we picked up 64W for

more wide open emptinesses through Dulce and

out into the extraction patch, all good until Blanco when we were suddenly

confronted/ afflicted with 50 miles of 45 mph four and six lane “safety corridors”

pretty much all the way to Shiprock, after

which I drove, the rock itself to the south, into the sun with rush hour rez traffic [and looking for someplace, anyplace, to stop and let the dogs out, not easy] until 64 terminated

at Teec Nos Pos, turning into 160, a much better road but directly into the sun until it set, then finally Kayenta for dinner and the night…Navajo frybread with a sweet chile verde, no booze, dogs maneuvered into the elevator to go up and again down in the morning where

they were happy to be back in the truck, Agathla visible across the parking lot…

We continued on 160, easier and less populous in the morning, another thirty five miles west

to intersect 98 north, wherein after Kaibito an Escalade and a Tundra passed us*, to Page

in all its glory, then the increasingly irrelevant Glen Canyon Dam, Lake Powell evaporating

upstream [there’s a supreme irony in that name at this late juncture…was at the beginning, really] and into Utah tourist heaven where for miles there were no services open.

We let the dogs out by the roadside to breakfast and subsequently continued to Kanab

with little discernible traffic. Unless one stopped in which case, even in this “off” season, it was

constant. North of  Mount Carmel and the aptly named Orderville we had a tailgate lunch on a conveniently located dirt side road although even there the pickups and campers were

unceasing…not to mention the constant flow on the nearby highway; managing to keep the dogs distracted with treats, we got back on the road and into the flow, easy, and so to

Panguitch where having a paper map extricated us from the mess google had gotten us into, out of town and over the mountains on SR20 [8% grade!] to I-15, Beaver to pick up 21 at its

source and where, after Milford and Frisco,

there was nothing

until it ended in Garrison and we seamlessly entered Nevada to find 50 which was followed

[with the unfortunate distraction of Aggie’s wounding Linda’s hand]

to Eureka for first aid supplies,

the Gold Country Inn and burgers at the Urban Cowboy Bar and Grill, a strange high-ceilinged place just up the street from our hunter- and miner-filled hotel…shoulda ordered the chile verde there too from the looks of the Nevada article but it was all fine. So, rural TV worthless

as usual, to all a good night.

*Notably in being the only vehicles to pass us, and we only passed one, between Kayenta and Page.