Ontario, OR


 
I left the hotel in Utah before dawn, and after about 20 miles into Idaho along I-84, I noticed the sky starting to lighten and change color. This time, unlike the start in Santa Fe, I decided to pull off and take a picture. As I exited the car, I looked back, and it was even better than what I saw to my left. Hover over the image to see.

I’m finally back in my home state, and I should be home tomorrow after leaving 38 days ago. Because I am, it was time to go post office hunting. So, instead of taking the direct route, I got off of the Interstate at Hammett and started backroads to skirt around Boise to the south. And in a happy accident of this, I stumbled on the Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park. I had the place pretty much to myself and spent about an hour in the park. Because I’m weird, I even opted to climb to the top of one of the dunes that is about 40-50 feet high. It was a very good workout that shook the dullness out of the legs from sitting in a car.

How do you turn what was supposed to be a 320-mile drive into one that just clicks past the 500-mile mark? Go get the furthest south post office in the eastern part of the state before turning north to get back where you should have been. That’s how.

Tremonton, UT

Welcome to Green River

I have no idea who is represented by these metal silhouettes. My best guess is travelers along the Old Spanish Trail. I don’t remember seeing them back in April when I came this way, but then again, I was heading east, not west like today.

It was all Utah all day; it started way south and ended just 40 miles short of Idaho. I got to test out my new all-weather Vredestein Wintrac Pro+ XL tires. When I left Green River, I exited I-70 and got on US 6/191 that angles northwest towards I-15 and Salt Lake City. Not long later the skies darkened ahead, and the snow started falling about the town of Price. Just in time to start climbing up and over Soldiers Summit. But the snow disappeared as the road dropped down to I-15 near Provo. Very confidence-inspiring when travelling in the passing lanes, which were very slushy compared to the main traffic lane.

I arrived about 2 hours before I could check in to the hotel, so I found a little coffee shop for a latte and a panini in town. Scrolling for things to do, I discovered that the spot where the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways meet, creating a continental rail system, was 25 miles west of town. Off I went to the Golden Spike National Historical Park.

I finally broke down and bought an ice scraper after using my debit card to clean the windshield off for the past 4 mornings…

Monticello, UT

When I left Santa Fe this morning, the view to the west was outstanding. The sun was up, but not over the mountains to the east, so that the setting full moon was brightly illuminated as it descended towards a mountain that was covered with the recent snow. I thought I should pull off of US-285 and take a picture, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to capture its beauty, so I just looked at it every time I could and imprinted it in my brain.

Pork Taquitos at Amigo Cafe

The plan was to follow the semi-shortest way to get here, about 330 miles, but as with most of my driving plans, it went astray. Instead of turning north onto US-191 in Shiprock, NM, I stayed on US-64 West. Wondering where I might get lunch, I couldn’t stomach any of the fast food places in and around Farmington/Shiprock, so I thought of the restaurant that Sally, I, and her friend Holly ate at in Kayenta three weeks ago. It was a place called Amigo Cafe, and I could still taste the pork taquitos I had. Checking the map and the timing, I opted to go on a 110-mile detour. Worth every mile and minute. A place that I can highly recommend eating at if you find yourself in that area.

This route also took me by Monument Valley. I had seen very little traffic on the road past the entrance to it, so I thought that there wouldn’t be anyone standing in the road at Forrest Gump Point. Wrong, there were at least ten cars pulled over and about forty people pretending to be turkey vultures trying to get to some tasty roadkill. Singles, duos, and whole groups would run out into the road to get the selfie on the yellow line, only to have to hop back real quick to the sides when cars came through.

Bugging Out Early

The original plan for this trip had me flying out of ABQ and getting home on the evening of December 9th. Since I opted to drive instead of fly during the shutdown, I thought I would start back on Monday the 8th. I’ve broken it up into four 300-mile days so I’d get back on Thursday because I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday the 12th.

So today I started making reservations at the three stops. The first night is going to be in Montecello, UT, so I plugged it into Google Maps to look for hotels. It is a smallish town, so there are no big chain places, but I found one that has a good rating, so I booked it. Trouble is I put the wrong date in, so instead of putting Monday’s date in, I put in tomorrow’s. I only noticed the error as I was starting to look at places on stop number two. It was too late to cancel because that first reservation was not refundable.

Ooops.

Santa Fe, NM

World’s Largest Mule Shoe?


Leg 3 on the return trip to Santa Fe.

I got to check off a Roadside America thing today that I missed back in May of this year, the World’s Largest Mule Shoe. I’m not so sure it is even a mule shoe; it is more of a horizontal McDonald’s logo made of cement with mule shoes imbedded in it. The Roadside America write-up’s location led straight to a mule statue, not the big shoe, which is located at the town’s Heritage Center. The center looked like a very interesting place to visit, but because it’s a short hop (comparatively) from Lubbock to Santa Fe, we were there before they opened.

Quanah Parker Arrow, Muleshoe

As a bonus, there was a Quanah Parker Arrow there. Donna and I had taken pictures of a half dozen or so of them on our travels through Texas, but not this particular one.

Lubbock, TX

Sunset Geese


Leg 2 on the return to Santa Fe.

I had to scrape the thick frost off the windshield with my credit card to get going. Today was a shorter day than yesterday, and we got to Lubbock a little after 1:00 PM, which was way too early to check in, but that was OK, as we had 3 things to do first. 1) HTeaO 2) Eat lunch and 3) Clean out our 3rd H-E-B of the house brand Cinnamon Spice Oatmeal.

At stop #1 Sally asked for a restaurant recommendation from the girl behind the counter. Her response was Italian Garden. It was smack in the middle of downtown, and the food was fantastic and reasonably priced.

After we got all checked in, we wanted to take a walk to stretch our legs and found McAlister Park not too far from the hotel. It is a large park with a variety of sports fields, and the east side has a big lake with dirt paths around it. That lake is a stop along the migratory path of the Canadian goose.

Paris, TX

Christmas in Paris … Texas

Leg 1 on the return to Santa Fe.

If I ever had the windshield wipers off at all on today’s drive, it was for only a few seconds. The weather was just miserable. And whenever we got out of the vehicle, there was a stiff breeze making the 37° temps seem a lot colder.

For the first time in quite a while I didn’t make a stop at the Eiffel Tower, and there were two reasons for it. 1) The weather is miserably cold and wet, and 2) there was no reason to, as I already took a picture last year of Sally’s Tucson in front of it to go along with past photos of two different Mini Coopers and two different Miatas.

But, we did not miss going to Burgerland for dinner.

Burgerland