I left Bethesda on June 30 at around 10am, and headed to Friendsville, in Western MD. It's just about 5 miles from the western border of MD. I visited a friend there who has a house near Deep Creek Lake and Wisp, the ski resort. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but it's a beautiful place up high with a great view of the valley.

From Friendsville I drove to Cleveland and got a room in a hotel downtown. Only around $100, which is pretty good.

But the museum was awesome!

and continuing onto the king, Elvis:

The Elvis exhibit had a long video of his rise, and what other artists think of him (Springsteen, Beyonce, etc). There was also a big exhibit devoted to the Beatles, where they showed documentaries about all of their albums. Jimi Hendrix also had a big exhibit, of course. And as I'm sure you all know, he played left handed, and used a right handed guitar strung "upside down":

The bottom floor was the best floor, IMHO anyway. The upper floors had some special exhibits that were probably paid for by patrons. Anyway I stayed there over 2 hours, grabbed some yogurt and granola at a grocery store, and drove to Lake Erie and ate lunch.

I spent the rest of the day driving to visit friends who have a house on Lake Michigan near the town of Covert, where I stayed the night before continuing to Kaneville to pick up a passsenger.

They are both profs at U. Chicago, and this house is only 2 hours from Hyde Park. It's a very nice old money resort area, goes back almost 100 years where people from Chicago and Detroit had cottages on the lake. It's a real beach, with houses that are a stones throw from the water:

I left MI on Friday afternoon and drove to Chicago where I dropped one of them off and headed out to the western suburbs to pick up Jerry Blazey, who lives out near Fermilab. It took 2 hours to get to Hyde Park and then another 2 hours to drive the last 30 miles through Chicago rush hour! Jerry and I went out to dinner with old friends from Fermilab, and I stayed over at his place.

We then went over to the house of a young couple whose father is an old friend of Jerry's, kind of a pre 4th of July BBQ party. These were your "typical" South Dakotans, if you consider people like George McGovern "typical". The old friend was an official in several South Dakota public school districts, was superintendent of a few, a liberal minded guy and not at all a Trump supporter. The same for his grownup kids, who were from all over, visiting. It was pretty nice to meet people from a red state who were rational about Trump and the GOP. And it's not as if they were just regular east or west coast liberals who live in South Dakota - they still go hunting and fishing, love the outdoors and can talk a blue streak about the local football team. Solid decent people.

We drove from Brookings across South Dakota to Deadwood. Along the way, we stopped in Huron, South Dakota, a small farming town with a gigantic Pheasant over one of the bars:

The town also had a cow auction building, where they would bring the cows in and people would sit about them in the circular center of the building and bid:

Along the way, we passed some gorgeous small farms:

although in fact it seems as if big agribusiness has really taken over and pushed most of the small farmers out:

There were a lot of run down or even abandoned properties along the way, like below. Lots and lots of such properties, it's pervasive out there. That rural life sure seems like it's ended or ending for most people there.

Here's a shot of an abandoned building in a the middle of a beautiful wheat field:

There was a region east of the Missouri River (which is where the state capital Pierre is located) where there were some hills with windmills on top. Jerry says this is a growing industry in the upper great plains:

We stopped in Pierre, pronounced "peer". It was damn hot out, over 95, and we found what looked like a pretty good old fashioned diner where I got a damn good BLT. Tom's Diner. There were a huge number of what very overweight people having their 4th of July lunch.

We left Pierre and headed to Rapid City through some pretty isolated but beautiful countryside, with gigantic wheat, corn, and soybean fields:

We got to Rapid City around 4pm, and it was pretty hot, so we walked around town. It turns out Rapid City has sculptures of all the presidents, lifesized, on the corners of many of the downtown streets. It's really nice likenesses, they did a great job. Here I am with LBJ, slapping 5 with Obama, and having an interesting discussion with Ike about strategy:

We got some ice cream (and yes, lots of pretty overweight people, but I guess that's the only way to get through the long and cold South Dakotan winter):

Then we drove to Deadwood and checked into our hotel in a Casino, walked around Deadwood, and that was the 4th. We didn't see any fireworks on account of that area is too dry.

Deadwood is a real tourist town, known for its "wild west" feel. It's where Wild Bill Hickock was shot in the back at the No 10 Saloon, and yes there's a big sign there about it. Here's a shot of the town:

Here I am in front of the Bullock Hotel monday morning, it's a famous place that goes back to the founding of the town (have you ever seen the TV show "Deadwood"?):

The countryside is really unique. It's up high (maybe 4000 feet), and east of the Rockies, so very interesting geology, and spent millions of years under the ocean. Lots of small farms or ranches along the way, not very prosperous, but I don't think Wyoming has the farming that they have in Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, etc, so big agribusiness hasn't taken everything over. But there's probably not too much money is being a dairy or beef farmer. Anyway, Wyoming is not the least populated state in the lower 48 (6 per square mile, and only Alaska is less), and is absolutely beautiful.

We stopped in Buffalo for gas:

Here's a shot looking west from Buffalo, towards the eastern Rocky Mountains:

Past Buffalo is the Bighorn National Forest. Talk about spectacular. This is the Twosleep area, lots of hikers and some backpackers camping out below.

Here we are up high on the pass just on the west side of the Bighorn (they call it "The Bigs" out there):

Eventually we get to Thermopolis ("hot city"), and check in. There's a public hot springs, but also a private one that cost $18, and has several large pools (1 inside, 1 outside) and several saunas (also 1 inside and 1 outside) as well as a steam room that is at 115F. Which by the way is too hot to stay in for more than a few minutes. They also have a couple of slides. The water is all sulfur heated, and it comes from underground aquifers that are around a mile below ground and for some geological reason get pushed to the surface. Here's a picture from a report dated around 1909, supposedly accurate, it shows how deep these aquifers go. These hot waters get to the surface through fault lines (labeled "5" in the picture), and come up mixed with minerals like sulfur.

It smells like sulfur alright, but you get used to it fast. We walked to the private setup because it was just around the corner.

We stayed in there for a few hours actually. It was really relaxing, floating around in the pool or sitting in the hotter part, it was really warm, and no chlorine.

We had dinner at the "Safari Restaurant", and the food was decent but the walls were covered with heads of various animals. Sigh....but a rather nice sunset!

It's due south, and within 15 miles enter the Wind River Canyon. This is a narrow canyon, with a road on one side of the Wind River and a railroad line on the other. And totally beautiful.

  

The canyon has an amazing geological history, going back billions of years, and given continental drift, this area used to be near the South Pole a few hundred million years ago.

What's really nice is that along the way, they have signs that point out interesting geological history. Here's an example:

Wind River starts from the Boysen reservoir, which is made made from a damn that also provides hydroelectric:

We stopped for gas in the town of Riverton, and headed down a state road. It was totally isolated, with an occasional Elk wandering around. This is gorgeous country, and wide open. The only structures around are probably for oil and fracking production, but they are few and far between.

     

Here are a few more examples:

  

It was probably 100 miles of this, with almost no towns anywhere near us. Eventually we got to the town of Rawlins, got something cold to drink, and poked around. I think you could buy this for a few hundred thousand:

but unfortunately there were way too many houses that looked more like this:

And speaking of unfortunate blights on the landscape, check out the following. The only good thing you can say is that at least there aren't a lot of such plans, and it's arguable that we do need an energy source that makes us less dependent on the middle east and Russia as we transition to renewable. Oh well....

Once we get into Colorado, the elevation increases and we enter really beautiful country, with mountains all around these really colorful alpine meadows. The colors in these pictures just do not do it justice:

 

This part of Colorado is not exactly isolated, in fact a great deal of the state is enjoyed by the wealthy:

We made it to Steamboat Springs in the late afternoon and had dinner at a semi decent Italian place (pizza) where we could sit outside. The place is full of tourists, and when we asked to sit outside the waitress said it was a 20 minute wait. When we asked about all the empty tables, she said the restaurant did not have enough workers to put all those tables in play.

The goal was to cross into Boulder over the pass that goes through Rocky Mountain National Park. What we found out is that the park is so crowded that they require a pass 24 hours in advance to enter it before 3pm, which we didn't have, so we had to wait till 3. Hence the long drive south and north to see the sights.

And by far the most dramatic sights were from the fire that burned in October, 2020. That year, Colorado had the 4 largest fires in it's history, with the Troublesome burning 192,560 acres as in the map below. This was only the 2nd largest fire, the largest one started on Aug 13 and kept burning small until the winds picked up in October and burned 208,663 acres.

As you can see in the map above, the road from route 125 from Walden to Granby cuts right through the main body of the fire, so you get a close up view:

  

It turns out that right after the fire, the soil is pretty rich, and the first thing that grows back is a really beautiful plant called "fire weed":

  

I have to admit, the scenery is very beautiful with all the stark colors. But the fire was devastating to a huge area, and it will take decades to grow back. This fire was also unique in that it actually jumped the continental divide despite the divide is so high that the peaks are above the tree line, so no fuel for the fire. This happened due to the dryness and high winds, which were so extreme that pine trees bent permanently, like spaghetti.

And it's going to be with us for the foreseeable future due to climate change. The following plot came from a paper where the researchers plot the precipitation times the temperature. They say that since 2000, Colorado's average temperature is 1F warmer than the previous century average, which means things will be drier.

And this is beginning to be seen as a runaway ecological disaster: hotter temperatures, the soil absorbs more water, so there's less running into reservoirs. For instance, a year or so ago, the measured flow of water from the Colorado into the Glen Canyon reservoir was less than 1/4 of normal, and the giant reservoirs of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada are all low now. So yes, climate change is already having huge effects in Colorado. And not just because of the fires: the warmer temperatures have made it easier for bark beetles to go higher in elevation, killing more trees, which provide much better fuel for large fires.

Anyway, we got into Rocky Mountain park and headed up to the high passes. It was amazing! The road just kept going up and up, reaching the summit which is more than 12,000 feet high.

  

At that height, there were no guard rails, which makes things tricky because the driver is also looking at the incredible view! But there were lots of places to stop and take a look:

  

At the top, I decided to get out and walk up to where a herd of elk were grazing, but I took only a dozen steps before realizing that that was too high for me. I was really out of breath fast, and didn't want to get dizzy so I settled with a picture:

I did get a shot at a marmoset peering at the cars from over some rocks above (telephoto!):

We also went on a 5 mile bike ride around the bike paths in Boulder, of which there are many. It was 97F in Boulder, and that was the start of exercising in the heat. I will need it for what comes next.

And through beautiful countryside.

  

I stopped for coffee in Leadville, which was a really nice rustic place in the mountains. The downtown has a bunch of stores, but it's not a zoo like it is in Frisco and Aspen and all the rest of the wealthy Colorado ski towns. And it's pretty high up - over 10,000 feet!

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From Leadville, you have to go over the continental divide at the Cottonwood pass to get to Crested Butte. It's way over 12,000 feet, and beautiful. I tried hiking up a hill to get a better view, and the altitude got to me so I turned around, but the view from the summit parking lot was spectacular!

  

Crested Butte is also a really nice Colorado mountain town, with a pretty crowded main street (Elk St).

I didn't stay long, and headed to Moab.

Heading west and north, and being on the western side of the divide, the geology was really changing, and it quickly got up to 100F and even above.

In these first 2, you can see the high meadows and more rolling mountains behind - I've definitely left the Rockies behind:

  

As I got into Utah, it became a hot and arid other worldly kind of view:

     

Here are some photos of Arches as I was driving to the trailhead:

  

Here are some photos of the hike. I took the long route, through "Primitive Trail" (it's on the map near "Devil's Garden" if you look close enough). Incredible things to see:

        

The hike was 6.5 miles total, and I was pretty pooped when I got back. It has a lot of up and down, the temperature was climbing steady, and at one point I went along the wrong part of the trail and had to double back. But it was invigorating (as long as I survive it, of course, which I did!). And of course the hike took me past the largest arch in the park, called "Landscape Arch". It's over 300 ft long, and is starting to come down:

Here are some other spectacular vista views from inside Arches:

        

Those rock formations are rather unique. Here's an example:

This one is called "Balanced Rock" for obvious reasons. I think it used to be part of an arch that fell down eons ago.

  

I did a little digging (no pun intended) to try to figure out how these arches formed. I think it has to do with some very special circumstances. Around 300 million years ago, the area was intermittently under an ancient ocean. Why it's intermittent probably has to do with geography (and back in those days, Utah was probably in the southern hemisphere). Anyway the cycling of ocean and desert caused large deposits of salt to form. Then geologic changes formed the salt into huge "walls", and rock was built up on top. Once things became stably dry, the salt walls caused cracking in the rock above it, which formed the long "walls". Then, water erosion widens the cracks (from rains but also from freezing), and starts to dissolve the salt on the bottom. Voila, arches. This picture is not bad:

Arches is really special. Walking around, one expects to turn a corner and see a dinosaur. It just has that feeling of time flowing slowly, on the scale of erosion.

This is gorgeous country, dry and ancient, untouched by development. The sedimentary strata date back between 270 to 80 million years ago, when the area was constantly at the bottom of ancient oceans, deserts, swamps, etc. 270 million years ago, Utah was barely in the northern hemisphere:

The uplift that created the Colorado Plateau roughly 50-70 million years ago gave the land that distinctive look:

  
  

But there is civilization in this remote dry region. At least, it looks like it might have been civilized at one time:

  

Anyway, it was already over 100F at noon, and I decided to keep going and not hike around Capital Reef, although people who have will rave about how beautiful it is. Another time....

After the Capital Reef area, the landscape "calmed down" on the way to Ely. The rough arid ancient strata start to morph into distant mountains and long ranges, like this:

  

And given the heat, and the mountains with large flat ranges, I passed through several small rain storms, which are really beautiful to see from the road:

I pulled into Ely around dinner time, and got a room at the Hotel Nevada:

This hotel was built in 1929, and at the time it was the tallest building in Nevada. The area had a lot of silver and lead mining, active since the late 1800s. They have gambling in Nevada, of course, so the bottom floor of the hotel was full of slot machines, and a few card and roulette tables. But most of the people were these kind of sad older drawn out folks sitting in front of the slots, shoving coins in, hoping. Not too crowded though, just a few people, not even a dozen actually.

The room they put me in was the "Wayne Newton Room". That guy is pretty well liked in Nevada, especially Vegas, and stayed at the Nevada Hotel.

  

In fact, the hotel has been visited by a host of luminaries: Mickey Rooney, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, Pat Nixon (who was born in Ely), Stephen King, and politicians like Harry Reid and Lyndon Johnson. And of course, Wayne Newton. I know this because out front of the hotel, they all have stars embedded in the concrete!

And near the top of the stream of stars, is one for Benny Binion:

The exhibit consisted of 6 huge coal furnaces, built out there to turn trees into charcoal, that can be used to smelt the ore and separate out the lead, silver, etc. It was a big mining area, and the furnaces were built in the late 1800s.

  

This is really gorgeous country, around 7000 feet elevation. Here's a closeup of one of the furnaces:

I took a hike along a very inviting trail, just a mile or two, and headed out. There was no one there but me.

Here's a snapshot of the blurb they prepared to explain these beasts:

  

Actually, there was one person I ran into. When I pulled into the parking area, there was a ranger there standing around the parking lot. He had his pickup truck nearby, and when I pulled in he started gesticulating wildly, motioning me to park over by his truck away from where he was standing. So I did and went over, said hello, and asked him what was up. He pointed to the ground where there was some kind of aerosol can there, just sitting there, I think it was bear spray or something. I asked him what was the problem with it and he said be careful, it's a potential hazard, possibly a bomb that could explode if I picked it up. Hmm, so I said really, why would someone want to make a bomb and put it in the parking lot here in the middle of nowhere, and he said "to harm rangers", and then started talking about how this is the age of defunding the police, that "those people" are out to get police, and so on. The guy was probably around 5'10", maybe mid 30s, had a 2 day beard, and looked like a nice stable person. And maybe he is, but he was talking like a crazy person. He said that he was waiting for backup. Sheesh. I left him there to deal with the bomb. America sure is interesting.

Here's a picture of the road I drove on to get back to Highway 50. Those mountains way off in the distance are probably 3-5 miles away.

Ely is not a very prosperous town, but then not many are out there on US 50, the Lincoln Highway, aka "America's Loneliest Road". Here are examples of hard times in Ely. And these properties have a lot of company. The town is not destitute, not at all, just really hard times.

  

I then took off from Ely, headed to Lake Tahoe, and the drive is nothing less than spectacular.

You go over mountain passes, maybe 7k feet, and down into valleys, 2-3k down, on straight roads through beautiful expansive country that is for the most part empty. It was hot, like 100, ok with the top down, a long sleeve shirt and a hat with a big rim to keep the sun off me, and a cooler of ice water and coffee and a few pieces of fruit. Beautiful vistas from the road:

The convection clouds were forming due to the heat, drawing moisture up:

and of course that led to some localized rain, which you can see happening from miles away:

The rain lowered the temperature, and more often than not it was so localized that I only got a few drops. A few times it did rain a decent amount, but as long as I drove over 60 or 65, with the top down and windows up, the rain just passed by overhead almost horizontally and I stayed dry.

I passed a few old towns like Eureka and Austin, also on very hard times:

  

  

It wasn't all bleak, there were a few places that seemed to be surviving. But not a lot of people out there, so times are tough for the survivors as well:

At one point in western Nevada, I spotted something that was interesting enough to pull over and check out. It was a Pony Express station, all fixed up, right off the highway. Interesting grafitti on the explanation sign...

  

This was a wonderful ride, one vast beautiful landscape after another for the entire day. The Lincoln Highway is a magnificent way to go!

  
  

I pulled into Tahoe, found a motel room that wasn't too expensive, and went for a long walk as the sun set. Beautiful place, lots of people in the lake, which is very shallow out quite a distance.

  

Beautiful area to hike around.

  
  

I did a few miles, got hungry to turned around, grabbed a coffee, and headed to Sacramento and Berkeley. Needless to say, that was also a beautiful drive but passed deeply golden hills, so golden due to the drought, which is going to make fire season awful.

And so ends my westward journey, around 3500 miles!

San Francisco looks great:

and I had a great time hanging around Berkeley, which has great food and especially coffee:

I had coffee with Barbara and Aniko twice!

and Barbara and I went on a wonderful 7.5 mile hike up on Mt Tam:

  
  

and I got to spend some time with David and Joan the day before I left for home:

About half of the trip between Reno and Winnemucca was through smoke from a fire. I never found out where the fire was, but I think it was east, near Elko. The smoke was pretty bad, visibility was down to a few hundred yards at the worst point.

But once I got to Winnemucca it had cleared, and the drive to Nampa was just gorgeous. Southern Oregon and Idaho are just beautiful, wide open spaces.

  
  

And long roads, that I find appealing to photograph.

  

And the sunset was pretty nice:

  

The scenery along 20/26 is amazing:

  
  
     

The highlight, of course, is "Craters of the Moon" national park, which as you can see on the map above is just south and west of Arco. The park is 410,000 acres, and almost entirely consists of lava fields and volcanic cones from between 2000 and 15000 years ago, which is pretty recent. The park is around 6,000 feet high, and the park service built a very nice loop you can drive, leading to trailheads and lava caves. It's kind of eerie, being within all of these lava flows. Here is a video I took by driving slowly and holding my iphone up:

Here are some photos.

  
  

Seeing as how it was late in the day, and very hot, I decided to take a hike first. The hike was around 1 mile out and 1 mile back, and this time I had 2 bottles of water. I needed them both. Here are some photos of the hike. It was probably around 95, and the sun was blazing.

  

I am especially impressed by the gnarliness and beauty of these dead trees out in the middle of the nowhere:

  

On the drive to Rexburg, I started seeing Hawks perched on the tops of telephone poles, so decided to see if my new telephoto was up to the job. Pretty formidable looking bird.

I wanted to get there early in case the place was backed up, and it was, but only took around 15 minutes to get through. Not nearly as bad as I feared (and as probably was later).

On entering Yellowstone, it was like being in paradise....

  
  
     

And yes, the place had a lot of geysers, and the smell of sulfer was in the air. This one was by the side of the road, and was about 2 feet wide.

This was was quite a bit larger, and had a big crowd around it so I settled for a picture from above:

Of course, you can't go through Yellowstone without encountering Buffalo. Up close they are very impressive animals. One cannot be fooled by any potential passivity, they are known to tolerate people but only so far. You can't get too close. I had a 60x telephoto to help with that!

  
  

These animals are there in herds, although sometimes some of them stray.

  

And they have no compunction about crossing the road. When they do, you have to wait. Each one of these males weighs between half and 1 ton.

I really wish I had had a geologist with me, to explain things like the following, and how you get these different colors of rock with such a steep striation angle. This was all at around 7400 ft elevation.

  

Driving through Yellowstone was spectacular. Most people stayed on the main roads, but I took the northern route down 212 and exited the park on the northeast side. Lunch at a really nice cafe in Cooke City, and up to the Beartooth!

As I got closer to Beartooth, the terrain changed quite a bit:

Here's how the scenery changed as I went up:

At 8,600 ft:

At 9,500 ft:
   At 10,100 ft:
  

At 10,900 ft:
  

At the top I wandered around a bit, and the whole thing was incredible. Look at the colors of the lichen on the rocks!

What's really amazing about Beartooth is that even though it's not the highest road I was on (Rocky Mountain was over 12k, Beartooth topped off just under 11k), the vistas were spectacular from the top of Beartooth, you can see all the way down to the valley below, and it was easily 1 mile down. Here are some high res closeups:

On the way down, I stopped for one of the above shots and met Yogi and Leela, a very nice Indian couple from Sri Lanka who live in Kentucky. They were blown away by the view, and we talked a lot about how unique this view is. They were on a trip to celebrate her 50th birthday. We had a very pleasant chat, and of course veered slightly onto the subject of climate change, etc. But mostly we were all moved as if it was a religious experience. Below is a lake we were viewing, and you can't really see it but there are some people way down there by the lake!

Then it started to rain, and I had to reluctantly put my top up. It was still beautiful:

  

I went off I94 at Miles City and traveled through some very dry and beautiful landscapes.

  
  

TRNP is right next to Medora, ND, and is a badlands, but with more water so more vegetation. That is, up until now maybe. The park is gorgeous, but incredibly dry now.

  

There were lots of prairie dog towns, with buffalo, and some residents were out scrounging around. But it was close to 100F out and even that's too hot for prairie dogs and buffalo.

  
  

I took a long hike, maybe an hour, in a wash cut through some sandstone structures. The "rocks" are not really rocks, it's all sandstone, and people can easily carve their names in there although I'm sure it doesn't last more than a season after the rains come. It was really beautiful, and so quiet.

  
  

I wasn't alone at the trailhead:

  

The place really was dry, with sublime views.

  

I left TRNP at around 5pm and headed to Dickinson to go to a hardware store and make some car repairs, and on the way to Fargo I passed the exit for the "Home on the Range" ramp. They sure are well advertised from the road:

  

I looked it up on the web, it was established in 1949, which means that the "72 years" in the photo is up to date. Amazing. It's for boys and girls, 12-19 years old, who have "dysfunctional coping skills" and they are taught how to manage them. This is a religious organization, the President is the Bishop of Bismarck and the VP is head of the Church of St Mary in Bismark. Let's hope it's not embroiled in some of the more notorious church scandals (a quick googling shows that they are not...)

After Fargo, I pretty much went straight home and arrived on Monday, Aug 2 after stopping in Madison on July 31 and Covert on Aug 1. Total travel miles, both directions, around 7500 miles.