Our plans are to celebrate Christmas and a couple of birthdays. Then put this wacky year behind us and usher in what hopefully will be a more normal (whatever that means) 2021 in California. If all goes as planned, our immediate family will all be together, which will make it a very special time.
As we have been doing, we will continue to be as safe as possible. We're armed with enough masks, gloves and hand sanitizer for a small army. We will continue our practice of staying as socially distant as possible in everything we do. We haven't seen our California family in close to half a year. The decision to visit them at this time was not taken lightly.
First up on the agenda, getting to California. It doesn't take someone with a PhD in geography to know that there's a lot of real estate between Florida and California. As usual for us, the journey is part of the adventure.
We had left our car (a.k.a. The Silver Bullet) in Denver back in late Oct when we returned to Florida. We used a "Park, Sleep and Fly" package at a Denver Airport hotel that worked really well and was very affordable. Earlier this week we flew back to Denver, picked up the Bullet and were on our way to California. A short nineteen hour drive away!
We hit the road from Denver around 1:00 Tuesday afternoon with our goal for the first night being Grand Junction, Colorado. We had made this part of the drive several times through the years and although it is along the interstate (I-70), it's incredibly scenic. The weather was clear and cold, the mountain ranges covered with snow and we could see skiers making their way down the slopes as we passed Vail and numerous other ski slopes along the way.
We made it to Grand Junction just as the sun was setting. We enjoyed a nice but short walk on the very festively decorated Main Street before heading to bed early. We knew the next day would be a long travel day, but we didn't anticipate completely what was in store.
Our plans were to leave Grand Junction around 6:00 AM. and be at Arches National Park in Utah by 8:00. We planned to spend a few hours in Arches before heading on to our next stop of Great Basin National Park near Ely, Nevada. But by 4:00 AM we were up, well rested and ready to hit the road. The early departure caused us to scrap the side excursion to Arches. We had been there before, hopefully we'll be there again sometime down the line. Unfortunately Great Basin National Park was closed (even though their website said it was partially open).
Like the previous day, the weather was clear and cold..........at times REALLY COLD!. We were out of Colorado fairly quickly and into some of the higher elevations of Utah. We enjoyed watching the car thermometer hover in the single digits for a while. Our mouths dropped open when the thermometer hit zero, but it didn't stop there. The lowest temperature we saw was a subtropical -4! Needless to say, we kept moving and kept the windows of the Bullet rolled up.
As the drive progressed we decided to make our destination for the day Truckee, Ca. We had originally intended to spend Friday night in Truckee. It's less than 30 minutes from Truckee to North Lake Tahoe, so one more day exploring the Truckee area made for a nice revision of our original plan. We arrived in Truckee around 4:00. With the one hour time change, our driving time was around thirteen hours. A long day for sure but somehow we managed to keep our wits about us and were still speaking to each other when we arrived. It was a long but interesting drive!
We knew that a significant portion of this drive would be on US 50. This transcontinental highway runs from Sacramento, California to Ocean City, Maryland. We would be driving a portion of the Utah section and the entire Nevada section. In 1986 Life Magazine dubbed this stretch of US 50 "The Loneliest Road in America" Thirty Four years later, we can vouch for the fact that it is still lonely! Especially when you do it all in one day.
We were on this lonely stretch of highway for around 10 hours. Occasionally we passed through a dusty little town. Some of the bigger ones would have a few restaurants, hotels and of course the Nevada ones would have a casino or two. Many of them more closely resembled ghost towns, especially now that interstate travel had reduced the number of people passing through them even more. Speaking of cars, we'd meet one heading in the other direction ever so often. There were winding sections through some of the mountain passes that would be followed by long straight sections where you could spot a car heading your direction. You had several minutes before they passed, giving time to build up the excitement. We think we may have passed 2-3 dozen cars along the way. Social distancing wasn't a problem!
A few pictures from the Loneliest Road in America.......
While traveling the loneliest road in America we talked, sang old TV theme songs, modern songs and reminisced about past adventures. Of course we also talked about how lonely of a road it is! We also thought back to the short lived Pony Express. It only operated for less than two years (April 1860-October 1861). The thought of riders on horseback delivering messages, newspapers and mail from California to Missouri are legendary. The Loneliest Road in America was built along part of the Pony Express Trail. There are numerous historical markers and even a few of the relay stations still along the road. Man, it's been a lonely road for a long time!
We made it to Truckee in time to catch this magnificent sunset!
