Pacific Northwest – Day 2

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Little A'Le'Inn in Alamo, Nevada

Fortunately, the aliens never arrived, and so the day of anal reckoning has been pushed to some point in the future. Wow, we really did make it out here near Groom Lake and can now lay claim to having spent a night in the shadows of the aliens of Area 51 as well as Roswell, New Mexico. I have to admit I’m a bit disappointed we’ve not yet been chosen for abduction as I’m prepared to meet the little green men face-to-face. Then again, how do we know that the people of the Little A’Le’Inn and its restaurant out here in Rachel, Nevada, weren’t aliens in disguise?

Highway 375 The Extraterrestrial Highway in Nevada

Not even one spaceship, hitchhiking alien, lost probe, or mutilated cow next to the road here on Highway 375 better known as the Extraterrestrial Highway.

Caroline and I are always surprised by the beautiful weather we are so lucky to travel with. We’ve commented dozens of times how, even on the less than ideal days, we’ll still spot some blue sky, which never fails to put smiles on our faces and lend a kind of perfection to the day.

Rustic farmland is like a rainbow under the blue sky, and while it may be an idealized perception not taking into account the toil and hardship likely experienced here during harder times, it remains part of the attraction of exploring America’s remote corners.

Austin, Nevada

Here we are nearly a year to the date back in Austin, Nevada, where the E.T. Highway brought us to The Loneliest Road in America: Interstate 50. In this link, you will find a photo of this place, seven images down from the top.

Nevada Route 305

Is that a crop circle out there?

Somebody speeding in Nevada on Highway 50

Seems that the aliens were late: I’m not actually driving at 120 mph; we’ve been abducted and are being transferred to the mother ship through some kind of induction system that has us traveling vertically, seriously! Also, the clock stopped around this time.

Nevada Highway 140

Woah! And then all of a sudden, we were delivered to Nevada Highway 140 and we have no recollection of how we got here. Well, at least the sky is still blue, and the car is no longer traveling at 120 mph.

Caroline Wise and John Wise entering Oregon

Hmmm, this looks like a good place to sneak into Oregon. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to secure a visa allowing us to travel into this state, and our passports explicitly forbid us from traveling into the Pacific Northwest under our current status, but that wasn’t going to stop these two desperados from breaking in.

Of course, by taking this route into Oregon, we have to pass through no man’s land where nothing exists but vast stretches of nothingness. This particular nothingness is a photo reminder to someday return to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Even the sun is removed from the sky in the continuing void of eastern Oregon that stretches on like a desert of lost dreams.

Then, finally, as we start to approach the middle of the state, civilization remakes its appearance, and the fading sun beyond the horizon reassures us that tomorrow promises to be a wonderful day in the lush green lands of the Pacific Northwest.

Pacific Northwest – Day 1

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Caroline Wise and John Wise leaving Phoenix, Arizona

A long holiday weekend means that Caroline and I will be taking another long drive. This Thanksgiving was just that, as we aimed our compass and pointed the car towards the Pacific Northwest. Our ice chest can be seen over my shoulder, so the essentials are traveling with us to minimize our need to lose precious driving time as we need to cover nearly 1,600 miles (roughly 2,600 km) each way for our seven-day adventure.

Arizona Sunset

This may be the most glorious sunset we’ve ever experienced on a trip out of Arizona, a kind of southwest-themed rainbow portending great adventures ahead.

Hoover Dam from Arizona

The art deco architecture of Hoover Dam out in the middle of the desert between Phoenix and Las Vegas is in stark contrast to its environment. It’s an iconic image that is seared into my memory due to driving over it back in 1969 with my great aunt and uncle Annie and Woody. We were nearing the completion of my first cross-country road trip from Buffalo, New York, to Los Angeles, California.

The Extraterrestrial Highway in Nevada

No time for Las Vegas tonight; we have an encounter scheduled out in the desert north of the city. One of us, or maybe both, are getting anal probes.

North Rim Grand Canyon to Capitol Reef – Day 2

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Up and out early for a visit to Capitol Reef National Park.

I wish I could tell you what’s on this Mule Deer’s right eye; maybe it’s a mini-satellite tracking device.

We are seduced by the golden colors of fall glowing in the sunrise. Our positive first impressions of Capitol Reef are already hinting at the need for a follow-up visit.

Being suckers for petroglyphs, we add these to the list of stuff we must return for in order to have a fuller picture of the park than our quick tour is going to allow us to have.

Dirt roads are the paths to quiet riches because where the pavement ends, the crowds remain at bay, not that this place is swarming with visitors today.

A bit of Chaco cultural influence is at work on this relic of a “modern” building.

My best guess for what created these multi-colored layers is that this was a floodplain at one time. I think it wasn’t a lake as there are no black layers that would imply plant and fish life that was settling at the bottom, and the layers are seriously almost uniformly thin, so maybe it was quickly disappearing floodwaters that came and went?

If we are in Hanksville, Utah, this must be the famous Hollow Mountain gas station. We are about to turn off Route 24 for the 95 before taking the 276 to Bullfrog. Where…

…we were hoping to catch this ferry across Lake Powell. We just missed it by minutes and with almost two hours before the next ferry going in our direction, we opted to drive back towards Hite and take the bridge over the Colorado.

While we will always enjoy a good ferry trip over the water we don’t much mind a stunning drive over the desert either.

Colorado River flowing into Lake Powell in Utah

Can you guess just where the Colorado meets the lake?

Wow, this is one spectacular approach to a bridge.

Hite Crossing over the Colorado River in Utah

Back in 1983, Lake Powell was in danger of spilling over the top of the Glen Canyon dam; under the bridge, you can see the bathtub ring the full lake left behind. Matter of fact, besides the ugly tragedy of destroying Glen Canyon by backing up the Colorado River, the water bleaches the sandstone and deposits tons of sediment in the lake, depriving the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon of the kind of river dynamics that made rafting a huge variable. Taming the beast to remove the risk of encountering the wild has been one of humanity’s greatest faults.

Caroline Wise and John Wise on the Colorado State Line

Why go straight home when you can detour and take in four states in one day? And I don’t mean some short little detour either; we go large and head through Blanding up to Monticello, where we catch Highway 666 so we can drop into Colorado going to Dove Creek. South through Cortez, we continue on the Devil’s Highway, where we can have a meaningful and potentially evil encounter with the Colorful State. Sadly, I have to report that neither Satan nor his minions were found on this day.

Snow-capped mountains and bald eagles, that’s America.

Caroline Wise and John Wise on the New Mexico State Line

Into New Mexico, we are still on Hell’s Highway as we cruise past Shiprock and south to Gallup before turning west for the final drive home on this blistering fast loop out around the Four Corners of the American Southwest.

North Rim Grand Canyon to Capitol Reef – Day 1

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Hot Air Balloons over Scottsdale, Arizona

Hmmm, balloons are floating overhead; that must be a signal to get in the car and race to the Grand Canyon. Sounds good to me, and so better late than never we spontaneously pack a bag and start the drive the north.

Navajo Bridge in Arizona over the Colorado River

These are the Navajo Bridges in northern Arizona. The bridge on the right was opened for traffic in 1929, and for many years, it was adequate to serve the purpose of crossing the Colorado River. As time went by, vehicles became wider, and although pedestrian traffic was forbidden on the original bridge, the temptation to stand over the middle of the Colorado and look into the canyon was too appealing. So in 1995, a second, almost identical-looking wider bridge was opened (on the left), and the old one was relegated to being a purely pedestrian bridge.

This is Balanced Rock on the way to Lees Ferry at the northeastern corner of the Grand Canyon National Park.

Caroline Wise standing at the confluence of the Colorado and Paria River at Lee's Ferry in the Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Lees Ferry is Mile Marker 0 in the Grand Canyon. It is here that white water rafting trips get underway. Caroline is standing in the confluence of the muddy Paria River where it’s entering the cold green waters of the Colorado right behind her. This is also the first rapid boaters encounter on their journey into the extraordinary world of the Grand Canyon.

North Rim Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

The view from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is roughly 1,500 feet above the other side. Funny how it’s “just” 23.9 miles to hike across the canyon and over 200 miles to drive from side to side.

North Rim Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

It’s nearly impossible to see her in the pic but Caroline with her hands in the air standing over the hole in the rock. We were both out there a few earlier trying to grab a selfie from over our heads so I could show you how narrow the rock is that she’s standing on, but that didn’t work out.

Fredonia, Arizona

Had to stop and teach Caroline about Fredonia, not this one in Arizona, as much as the fictional Freedonia referred to by the Marx Brothers in their 1933 movie titled Duck Soup. My introduction begins with the song “Hail Hail Freedonia,” followed by a bunch of mumbling to the tune that rings in my head nearly 30 years after I first saw this movie.

Thunderbird Restaurant in Carmel, Utah

Well, this was unexpected to find in the state of Utah and begs the question, “Just who are the hos that make these pies, and are they Mormon?” Should you think you, too, would like to try some Ho-Made Pies, you’ll find them in Mount Carmel Junction, where the road turns off to Zion National Park.

We made it another 160 miles past this to Torrey, Utah, to spend the night at Austin’s Chuckwagon Motel.

Caroline at Home

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Caroline Wise at home in Scottsdale, Arizona

Now that the decision to sell our place has been made, I’m feeling nostalgic for all the things we did and didn’t do while we lived here. The idea of what a “home” is supposed to be is tainted in our minds, as I suppose that due to our non-conforming alternative lives, we can’t fit the molds of what we, in some way, long for, normal. It’s hard to get over the idea that this is just another motel we temporarily inhabit, except with this one, we also have to be the cleaning service.