A Map

  Our 68 day and 10,729 mile road trip through 23 states . . . and I took nearly 8500 photos to prove it!

The End

  Little did I know at the time that one of the last photos (above) I took on my first day at the Salton Sea would be the last of my 2 month+ road trip.

   I returned to the motel in Calipatria after dark and noticed several roaches on the walls of my room.  At 10 pm as the office was closing I asked for a fly swatter and when I walked back to my room and looked up outside my door - I discovered the patio ceiling was covered with hundreds of baby roaches!  (and no, the photo above isn't the hotel).

   By midnight I convinced myself I'd not be able to sleep in that room.  It was still over 100 degrees out as I started packing up.  Sweat was dripping everywhere as I made a call and found a 24 hr gas station open in Brawley.

    At 1 a.m. I started the long lonely drive into the mountains east of San Diego.  There were only a couple of us on the Interstate at that hour.  I arrived back in San Diego at 3:30 am - a trip that started in a massive AZ dust storm, ended 68 days later in a massive roach fest!

   Salton Sea graffiti.

The Salton Sea

  I headed out early the next morning to the west shores of the Salton Sea.  In Salton City I discovered Ray and Carol's where I usually stay, was closed and locked up tight.  I know Ray died of prostate cancer several years ago but Carol wanted to keep the little Lodge going.

  Dreams of the Salton Sea and making any kind of recreation area out of it are over 50 years old now.  The small communities along the water's edge are more broken and forgotten than ever . . . but the sky, water and air will always have magical hues, especially in the late afternoon.

  

Collected --

   I think my favorite is the 8th one (above) of the * Living Word Church * - the blank sign.

Boulder NV to the Salton Sea, CA

We left Boulder, NV early and drove through the hilly neighborhood by the Quality Inn.  The manager the night before told us we might see some if we're lucky.  We never got lucky, we turned south and headed for California . . .

 . . . and made a stop in Searchlight, NV. before heading into the Imperial Dunes in SE CA.

  As we drove through the BLM Rec area, we drove into one of those incredible monsoon storms.  All traffic on hiway #78 came to a complete stop (even the truckers wouldn't drive through it) as visibility was absolute ZERO!

   We parked and waited for about 15 minutes until it cleared and then we were treated to the beautiful dunes all edged with wet sand.

   We rolled into Brawley around sundown and headed to the most Mexican looking restaurant we could find.

   Every year lodging near the Salton Sea gets more difficult to find as all the motels seem to have gone out of business.  We found a room at the only place in Calipatria.  Our plan was - Brock wanted to head to San Diego the next morning and I was going to spend 4-5 days with my camera around the shores of the Salton Sea.

Windows of Our 23 State Wander

   Weedy, weathered - colorful, interesting - deserted, broken . . . some of the windows I collected on this trip.

   The many locals we met (both people and animals) - the grand vistas, lush forests - interesting museums, simple stores - dusty roads and lumpy beds - beautiful state and national parks - fascinating towns and frustrating bigger cities . . . after nearly 11,000 miles, ideas and feelings about it all can't help but change a llittle as we seek to discover that unknown window in the next, distant town.

Too HOT! near Las Vegas

  We left Torrey, Utah early in the morning - the air was still crisp, but the desert roads into Nevada soon got hot.

   Stops were quick in the intense heat.  We explored an old broken barn briefly . . .

  . . . but mostly drove non-stop through the huge canyons north of Las Vegas.

Utter Utah!

   How can you miss what state you're in when you drive out of Colorado?  Utah's dramatic carved mountains surrounded us as we drove west.

   Not sure who 'Bob' is (or his little plywood shed) - but he captured the feeling of Utah's desert plains and mesa tops with bright paint . . .  

 A trio of hoodoos stand guard in the desert near the entrance to Utah's Goblin Valley State Park.

  It was 102 degrees when we started our hike down into the valley.

  Hundreds of hoodoos filled the valley.  Walking through them was like wandering a maze . . .
 . 

  . . . but the heat was so oppressive we couldn't stay as long as we would have liked.

AHH the West! Leaving Denver -->

 Before heading west out of Denver, we stopped at Red Rocks Park.  It was early morning and workers were starting to clean up the amphitheater's parking lots.  We never could actually see the amphitheater buried somewhere in these massive towering rocks, behind locked gates.

   Above:  find a 2-story rock wall - lower right - behind which we found a gift and information shop.

 Driving the scenic Hiway #285 west we could see the Rocky Mts in the distance.

Then heading west on Hiway #82 we climbed up and up into the mountains --

 -- 12,000 ft and we were at the Continental Divide!   Someone had painted a faux topographic map on the bathroom door.

   There was a beautiful lake nearby . . .

  
  But best were the vistas from 12,000 ft of the roads we drove and the ones yet to drive.

Iowa into Nebraska

   Driving through the far NW corner of Iowa into Nebraska (100+ degree temps), we stopped to take a midday break.  The library in S. Sioux City, NE looked shady and cool.

   Just inside the front doors we found a large aviary filled with dozens of the prettiest little birds.

  A man who said he worked for an aviary maintenance company was emptying out all the nests and replacing them with fresh straw.

  Next he used a small netted bird catcher to capture each little bird . . .

  He checked them over, leg banded the new chicks and used a toenail clipper to trim their tiny claw.

   We then drove scenic hiway 75 south (following the Missouri River) through the Winnebago, NE Indian Reservation --

  -- and further south we drove along a hillside ridge above some of the most beautiful farmland I've seen on this trip!

Minnesota into Iowa

   On July 3rd in the very southwest corner, we drove out of Minnesota through Luverne.

   It felt like we might have been following the pretty Canadian geese that filled Luverne's city park - however we didn't leave behind all the fresh fertilizer they did - whew!

  
Just inside Iowa, near Rock Rapids I stopped . . .

    -- where a huge empty silo (twice as tall as the damaged one beside it) was torn apart and left shredded by a recent wind storm.

   Two young men were working on the hot metal in 100+ degree heat - removing large screws one-by-one.

   One was more than willing to stop and explain how storms in this area are capable of this damage (especially empty silos).  Because the owners don't have insurance and want to salvage every piece (for reassembly), he was delighted he had work for 6 months, he guessed.

  His buddy too was then very willing to answer more questions - taking a long break in the intense Iowa heat.