Road Trip – BOOTS on the TRAIL

Saratoga & Ibex Springs (Death Valley National Park) 12-Nov-2021

2021-11-122021-12-12Posted in California, Other Stuff, U.S. National Parks & MonumentsTagged Death Valley National Park, Ibex Springs California, Road Trip, Saratoga Spring California2 Comments

We had one more day of 4×4 available to us, so we decided to make Adventure #5 a visit to Saratoga Spring and Ibex Spring at the south end of Death Valley National Park. This proved to be a day of minimal hiking and much off-road driving. We could have gotten to Saratoga with a 2WD car but a high-clearance 4×4 was a definite plus for the short, but lumpy, ride out to Ibex.

Continue reading →

Saline Valley (Death Valley National Park) 10-Nov-2021

2021-11-102021-11-17Posted in California, Other Stuff, U.S. National Parks & MonumentsTagged Death Valley National Park, Road Trip, Saline Valley California3 Comments

When we were tossing around possible adventures for our time in Death Valley National Park, Wayne and Diane mentioned that they’d always wanted to see Saline Valley, which is about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Furnace Creek. I had been there once before in the mid-1980s; The LovedOne had never been there. Saline Valley is one of the most remote and hard to reach places in the park. While you can make it there and back in a 2WD vehicle (bring extra tires!), a high-clearance 4×4 increases your chances of not spending many unplanned hours stuck in the desert. Since we had access to a 4×4, why not go for a visit?

Continue reading →

Lighthouse Peak ~ Palo Duro Canyon (Texas) 16-May-2017

2017-05-162022-04-14Posted in Hiking, TexasTagged Canyon Texas, Day Hiking, Grand Canyon National Park, Hiking, Lighthouse Peak Texas, ME2 backpacks, Palo Duro State Park Texas, Road Trip, Texas

Palo Duro Canyon is located in the West Texas Panhandle just east of Canyon and south of Amarillo. It’s the second-largest canyon in the United States – roughly 120 miles long, with an average width of 6 miles, and a depth of between 820 and 1,000 feet. It’s been called “The Grand Canyon of Texas” both for its size and for its dramatic geological features, including the multicolored layers of rock and steep mesa walls similar to those in the (real) Grand Canyon. Despite all this grandness, we’d never heard of it until The LovedOne stumbled upon it during one of her internet rambles. Backpacker magazine then ran a story on it in their March 2017 issue. Looked fascinating. So we made plans for a hiking roadtrip to go see it for ourselves.

Continue reading →

Death Valley Remembered (February 2017)

2017-02-102022-01-29Posted in California, Photo Essay, U.S. National Parks & MonumentsTagged Aguereberry Point California, California, Charcoal Kilns, Darwin Falls California, Death Valley National Park, Ghost Rider sculpture, Road Trip, Telescope Peak, Wildrose Canyon

“…the first impression remains a just one. Despite variety, most of the surface of Death Valley is dead … a land of jagged salt pillars, crackling and tortured crusts of mud, sunburnt gravel bars the color of rust, rocks and boulders of metallic blue naked even of lichen.” ~ Edward Abbey

“No place is ever as bad as they tell you it’s going to be.” ~ Chuck Thompson

Continue reading →

U.S. Route 20 Across the U.S.: Days 9 & 10 (October 2016)

2016-10-312022-11-01Posted in Other StuffTagged Bend Oregon, Boise Idaho, Ketchum Idaho, Newport Oregon, Oregon Badlands Wilderness, Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), Road Trip, Three Sisters Wilderness, U.S. Route 20

Ketchum, Idaho to Bend, Oregon (~470 miles)

We got an early start from Ketchum and had US20 pretty much all to ourselves as we went west toward its merge with I-84 at Mountain Home, Idaho. US20 departs from I-84 from time to time between Mountain Home and Ontario, Oregon but we just stayed with I-84 through Boise, Idaho to Ontario. Boise has become an increasingly interesting place to visit but not so much so early on a Sunday morning, so we skipped it this time. After Boise, we crossed the Snake River after almost exactly 3,000 miles of driving and were home again in Oregon! We picked-up US20 in Ontario, went through Vale (where the rain started up again), along the Malheur River to Drinkwater Pass, and then on to Burns, Oregon.

Continue reading →

U.S. Route 20 Across the U.S.: Days 7 & 8 (October 2016)

2016-10-292022-01-29Posted in Other StuffTagged Casper Wyoming, Cody Wyoming, Ernest Hemingway, Ketchum Idaho, Road Trip, Thermopolis Wyoming, U.S. Route 20, Wind River Range Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park

Chadron, Nebraska to Cody, Wyoming (~400 miles)

The day got off to somewhat of a clear start – just some high, thin clouds – as we went west from Chadron. Just beyond Chadron is Fort Robinson State Park, an historic cavalry fort that we’d visited before but we got to too early to visit this time. After traversing miles of grassland dotted with cows, we crossed the Wyoming border at Van Tassell and joined I-25 at Orin, Wyoming. We could finally see real mountains – the southern end of the Wind River Range – on the far horizon. We took I-25 into Casper, Wyoming, along the route of four trails that fueled the westward expansion: Pony Express, Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Pioneer Trail. The speed limit on I-25 is 80 miles per hour (not that anyone felt they had to go THAT slow…), so we reached historic downtown Casper in time for a large, amazing breakfast at Sherrie’s Place.

Continue reading →

U.S. Route 20 Across the U.S.: Days 5 & 6 (October 2016)

2016-10-272022-01-29Posted in Other StuffTagged Chadron Nebraska, Chadron State College, Charles Mound Illinois, Chicago Illinois, Road Trip, U.S. Route 20, Ulysses S. Grant Historic Home, Williams Iowa

Chicago, Illinois to Williams, Iowa (~320 miles)

The remnants of a Pacific tropical storm had finally reached the Mid-West and we awoke to a driving rain storm – and then spent the morning driving west through it. We weren’t allowed any respite from the rain until we reached the Ulysses S. Grant Home State Historic Site in Galena, Illinois. We stopped there primarily (OK, they had toilets too) to recognize the U.S. President that, despite a scandal-plagued administration, had the wisdom to create, in 1872, Yellowstone National Park. We were here years ago to hike the Illinois state highpoint, Charles Mound (1,235 feet), which is northeast of Galena.

Continue reading →

U.S. Route 20 Across the U.S.: Days 3 & 4 (October 2016)

2016-10-252022-01-29Posted in Other StuffTagged Chicago Illinois, Lake Erie, Norwalk Ohio, Road Trip, Seneca Falls New York, Tully New York, U.S. Route 202 Comments

Day 3: Tully, New York to Norwalk, Ohio (~399 miles)

It rained a little overnight but by morning it looked like we’d have another nice day like we’d had in Massachusetts. But patchy clouds had rolled over by the time we got to the Finger Lakes Region, with its prosperous little hamlets of Auburn, Seneca Falls, and Geneva. West of there, US20 alternated between two- and four-lane road and we made good time to Lancaster, New York, just east of Buffalo, New York. The rolling hills, small towns with their classic old houses, and forests in Fall colors made this a particularly attractive stretch of US20. We had lunch at the Broadway Deli (very good soup and salad!) in Lancaster and then followed US20 – slowly – through Buffalo’s eastern and southern suburbs. Then it was along the shore of Lake Erie (which you can’t see from US20) and into Pennsylvania. We entered Erie, Pennsylvania as its schools were letting out and rush hour was beginning, so we crawled through it, hitting stop light after stop light. We’d gotten through Springfield (MA) and Albany (NY) on the weekend, so this was our first experience with regular, weekday urban traffic on US20. The glacial pace we were forced to assume made us question the practicality of going urban on US20.

Continue reading →