The Impossible Tahoe Turn and Burn, Day 2
The Impossible
Tahoe Turn & Burn is an 8 part series,
so be sure to start with Day 1
Although many friends suggested great things to do and eat and drink around Durango,
(even the guy who runs @visitdurango reached out), our time there was limited, and mostly all business, so we truly did none of it. We did make notes of all the good things, thank you.
This morning we were up early again and ate a free but terrible breakfast in the hotel, and then we were off to Cortez, then west to Moab and so on. This is beautiful country, in Canyon Country. We have our land, which is a lot of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land to play on.
For lunch, we bought some easy eats, all of it hand food and planned to eat in Black Dragon Canyon, the best canyon I've ever traversed. We ate about a mile in on a Jeep trail through the arroyo, and so far it hadn't been too sketchy of a drive. After lunch and further down the trail, things changed.
Over the next 3 hours or so we crawled along, wincing at the sounds of the tire sidewalls rubbing on the rocks, getting in and out of the truck (an actual Trail Boss) to plan crawls and stack obstructing rocks away from the trail, slowly inching through the most technical off-roading either of us had ever done. We absolutely had moments where each of us worried what we'd gotten ourselves into, alone and aloud to each other. But we work together well, both stoic and determined, and we have a lot of experience between us. And, most importantly, we did make it. But still, 5 hours to tonight's destination: Ely, NV.
The road so far is long, and we have watched two sunsets; one on the eastern side of the range, and again once we descended the pass on the western front. It lasted a long time and it was beautiful in every direction, even at 80 mph. I've been shooting from the passenger seat, with the tripod and all, trying to get some images that make you feel like you're on these roads that go on past the horizon. Think I got some great ones today.
The darkness set in, along Hwy 50, part of the old Lincoln Highway, also referred to as The Loneliest Highway in America. It was just as lonely as any of the roads I often travel, we still came across plenty of other assumingly lonely souls, as is how it goes these days.
No idea what time it actually was when we finally rolled into Ely. I don't keep up with time much anymore, we've crossed time zones that I'm not keeping up with. Those two sunsets we watched were around 430 pm (somewhere), so it's confusing. Anyhow, it seemed late but probably wasn't, and we were just tired from rolling hard through some bad, bad land.
We checked into the Hotel Nevada, a casino that was once the tallest building in Nevada at a whopping six stories. It smells of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume, and upon checking in we were given two drink vouchers, good for one Bud, Bud Light or one frozen margarita, any of these served in a plastic Bud Light branded cup, to be enjoyed in the glow of the Bud Light neons hanging on either end of the bar. Missing our regular tequila intake, we opted for the margaritas and they were terrible, of course. Josh threw a few bucks into the bar top slot machine and won $50, all the while I was typing this.
Another relatively early night to bed followed, but precluded with the requisite dumping of cards, charging of batteries, and editing a few fotos. This post contains only one, but there will of course be many to come (I've shot over 1000 in 2 days so far). In the foto, Josh is enjoying a Peticolas Velvet Hammer at the pictographs in Black Dragon Canyon, a good spot.
