Day 25 cont After leaving Arco, it wasn't very far to Craters of the Moon National Park. We didn't know what to expect before we got there, and when we did get there, it was nothing like we would have expected - no matter what! No wonder they call it the Craters of the Moon, because it is nothing like anything we have ever seen on Earth, including volcanic places like New Zealand and Hawaii. We found out that the crazy landscape had only been created between 2000 and 15000 years ago - that is extremely recent in geological terms when the last BIG eruption at Yellowstone was 640,000 years ago (about say 100 times longer). Its age is of the same order of magnitude as the last Ice Age - related? Who cares? This is a traditional hot rod site, not National Geographic! Some pics - 'cause that's much more interesting than my quasi-scientific waffling. The area covered by the National Park is a few miles square and is extremely well laid out with smooth winding roads taking you through the various areas where different features are evident. The accessible sections of the NP are just a tiny area of the whole volcanic field, which extends for tens and tens of miles. The older areas are covered in scrubby gr*** and stumpy bushes. Apparently, in preparation for the Apollo moon landings, the astronauts were sent to Craters of the Moon to do training - not because there was any expectation of volcanic activity on the moon, just that the landscape is so extreme that it would give the astronauts some idea of the various weird features they might expect to see when they got to the moon. Would I recommend a visit to anyone? - I can sum it up in one word - Hell Yeah!!!!!! What sights! Definitely a highlight of the trip - provided you have any affinity for geological features. No bison, bears, prairie dogs, etc, but a bunch of nearly brand new rocks.
From Craters of the Moon, we headed for Twin Falls, a large city on Snake River. Then from there, due south down US-93, through very pretty, low-rainfall countryside to I-80 and then east along the freeway, getting to Wendover just before dark. Wendover in the foreground, with the Bonneville Salt Flats in the background. When we first planned our visit to the US, I looked at when racing would be underway at Bonneville. First Speed Week got cancelled, but there was always USFRA event in mid-September. I had everything crossed that there might be an event. After we arrived, there was still hope - the USFRA were going to inspect the salt at the end of August and make a decision then. I had planned to be at Bonneville around the time of the USFRA event, and even when they cancelled their event, I still hoped that there might be a few hardy souls who just wanted to have a go anyway. I still hoped (against logic) that it might be the case. Along the way from Twin Falls, which was in bright sunshine, the sky started to cloud over and then get darker toward sunset. As we arrived in Wendover, we hear the distant rumbling of thunder and as it got darker, the lightning show was spectacular. The rain soon followed, and didn't let up, along with the lightning and thunder for hours more. All night it rained - good solid rain too - not that light showery sort of stuff - it was 'Man's Rain'.
Day 26 - Wendover UT to Rock Springs WY Next morning, it was still raining - I realised that no matter what, after a good inch or two of rain, there was not a chance that there might be anyone running on the salt. I expected there would be a good inch or more of water on the salt. ********! Lake Bonneville (ex-Salt Flats) We drove along the access road to the end. There were a couple of other sort-of-lost people there, I'm sure who were also hoping to see the famous salt, but instead seeing water a few inches deep and the rain was still falling - perhaps a little lighter than the heavy storm of the night before, but still pretty good rain. One dualie had a Bonneville 200 MPH licence plate surround, but they drove off just as we got there, so we couldn't commiserate with each other. I was gutted - Bonneville is one of those 'bucket list places' that I would love to go to and see LSR cars running flat out on the salt. Ah well, ............................................ next time!
Leaving Wendover / Bonneville, we headed east along I-80. There was lots of water on the road. As we continued east, the rain got heavier. The water on the road got thicker. The roads are built for desert-like conditions, where it doesn't rain for months and months, so nice flat roads with no camber for water run-off are just fine for dry condition - not so for the deluge we were experiencing. When there is lots of standing water, with large puddles extending of multiple square yards (or square metres), they become frightening. Searching along lanes for areas with less depth to the water becomes essential to keep the car pointing in the right direction. Driving in the wheel tracks of trucks, after they have squeegeed the water away is one way, but the spray and the mesmerising nature of following a large truck which you can't see around because you're driving directly behind is just about as bad. The car aquaplaned a little bit a few times, but only through deeper puddles. White knuckle stuff. We got to Salt Lake City and it was still raining hard. Looking around, the Utah State Capitol Building was difficult to get to due to street closures for road works, but...... Then it was past the Temple We tried to get into Downtown SLC but kept getting thwarted because every road that led into the city centre had either had a building built right across it, or was turned into a carpark entry / exit. After trying lots of different ways, we finally got there and found it to be much like any other city centre - not very interesting unless you work there or have business there, are attending an event there or have a particular penchant for high-rise architecture. We took the hint and headed off to get some lunch, then kept heading west along I-80. As we went through the mountains just east of SLC, the exterior temperature readout in the car kept dropping. I feared that the rain making the wet road would turn into snow (and we didn't have chains or 4WD (just guts and determination)). The temp kept dropping, but hovered around 2C / 36F, so we made it through the mountainous section OK.
Driving through Wyoming along I-80, the countryside ranged from high plains to driving past sheer rock walls as we headed towards Rock Springs Rock Springs turned out to be a bit bigger than I thought, which provided us with more options of places to go for dinner, etc. It was a good stopping point for the night.
Day 27 - Rock Springs WY to Denver CO The next morning, the weather was a bit kinder and we continued on along I-80. We dropped into Laramie before continuing onto Cheyenne. In keeping with taking a photo of the Capitol Buildings we have seen, here is Wyoming's version. As the state with the least number of people, it is slightly more modest in terms of size, but more elaborate in architectural distinction than some. All in, not a bad effort (according to me, anyway). Down the other end of Capitol Ave is the Union Pacific Depot which is now a museum. Other than that, for a city of under 100,000 people, Cheyenne seems like a pretty fair kind of place (damning it with faint praise, I know). I hope it is a nice place to live, but I know I will never find out. From there, straight down the I-25 to Denver. We got there around 5.30 on a weekday (Thursday) and having driven thousands of miles in the past couple of weeks in extremely light traffic, it took a bit of mental readjustment to get to grips with the idiots diving in front of me, other cars and trucks, swinging wildly from lane to lane, cutting other people off, doing panic brake tests and generally proving my theory about half of the drivers being less than average, .............. and we saw many of them. We survived (..........I drove in London for a couple of years recently, have done my time in LA and other large US cities as well as in Paris traffic (including the Periphyque and Champs Elysees etc), so I'm not afraid of traffic, but extra-special idiots do deserve mention.
Day 28 - Denver to Pikes Peak to Denver After watching old movies until too late, we slept in the next morning. Not having much of a plan for Denver and not really wanting to spend much time downtown, we decided to go down to Pikes Peak for the afternoon. Pretty easy drive down I-25 to Colorado Springs - the idiot quotient was much lower - it looks like they must save their stupidity for peak times. It's pretty easy to get to Pikes Peak and then head up the mountain. The road surface is excellent and while there are plenty of turns, and the climb is fairly steep, the drive is relatively straightforward. The feature of the drive is the views and the sheer edges, with very few barriers to mar the view (or stop drivers distracted by the views from driving over the edge). When at the top, we found it was clouded in, windy and the temp about 25C / 45F lower than below I'm not so good at such heights - the thin air makes my head swim a bit and I find myself really just wanting to get back down to thicker air.
Taking our time heading back to our motel, we had dinner and then went into the centre of Denver. Denver is the capital of Colorado - the Capitol Building (why are we taking photos of these? Dunno - same reason given by George Mallory - because they are there!) At the opposite end of the capitol square precinct is the Denver City Council / Denver County Court Building. The rooftop feature is very nicely lit but hard to take a decent photo without a tripod, so please forgive me for the fuzzy pics. So, 28 days into our 8 week trip, we've done 8450 miles and driven through 16 states (a few of them included twice in that count). We've seen so many things of wonder and awe - almost all natural but a few man-made. We've met some really nice people and have enjoyed the first half of our holiday immensely.
Thanks for bringing us along. If you find yourself going through Durango, Colorado drop me a message.
Thanks readhead. I expect we will be down that way on about a week and a half. I'll PM you when we're getting near. Cheers.
Day 29 - Denver CO to Ogallala NE We had heard of Carhenge from somewhere, and having never been to Nebraska, and wanting to see plenty of it, we decided that even though it was kinda out of the way a bit, we would venture there. We've been to the original Stonehenge in southern England a few times over the years, so we felt qualified to judge the effort at reconstructing the iconic structure in the US. It turns out it's a long way from Denver. Along the way, we did see some sights We've noted before how Montana have claimed the Big Sky factor - in spite of that, Nebraska still has a fair amount of sky going for it also. If it's not big, it's just the size smaller - but only just. Nebraska traffic comes in all sizes and colours. This green one stood out a bit.
Cruising through the countryside on the very nice two lane roads, we p***ed through many small towns. In Sterling in NE Colorado, there was a push bike ride going on and we were lucky enough to find a car gathering at Dalton after p***ing through Sidney, Nebraska. There were lots of cars from the nearby towns - a mix of muscle cars, pony cars as well as some rods and pickups. This 32 5-Window Hiboy was very neat - some may argue it's a bit too 'street-roddy', but it was very well done and looked great. Another really nice car was this original low mileage 59 Studebaker Convertible. Packing the stock 6-cyl, it was in terrific condition. Very very nice.
This original looking patinaed early 50's Henry J g***er looked like it had been dragged out of a barn. It had quite a bit of rust through panels, as well as all over the headers and beam axle front end. In one way, it wasn't a gem, but in another, it was just a jewel. It was the duck's nuts. I took lots of photos of this one.
This early A Coupe looked really good, and was typical of the many (approx 60 odd) high quality cars on display. No rat-rods, which was nice (though there was a questionable looking 50 Ford Coupe that was near). After leaving, we came across the biggest farm equipment wrecking yard we had ever seen - it was way beyond anything we might have imagined - boy, have we lead sheltered lives - hey? This was a small portion of all the tractors and combines as well as every other kind of powered farm implement. Everything appeared to be well organised and ordered - if that's the kind of thing you are looking for.
We finally got to Alliance after 4 hours of driving - was it worth it? Well, kinda. We've got something sort of similar back home in Western Australia - Wave Rock. You have to drive 4 hours for that also, and when you get there, you think - "Hmmmm, ****** long way to come for that!" What you see in the photo is all that there is - about 100 yds of rock, when you expect to see it running across the landscape for miles and miles. Well, Carhenge is kinda like that, but then again, so is Stonehenge. Sure, Stonehenge is thousands of years old, and is steeped in mystery about how the hell did the ancient dudes drag slabs of stone weighing tons and tons, hundreds of miles across country, then erect them in perfect alignment to the position of the sun in the summer solstice. You visit Stonehenge and admire the fact it was done, but it's just a bunch of rocks and you soon think about where you'll go to get a Ploughman's Lunch or Banger and Mash (both food for those that don't know). Carhenge is very much a tongue-in-cheek attempt to attract people to Alliance. Goodness knows that most people wouldn't bother otherwise. There's nothing wrong with the place - it's just so far off the beaten track, most wouldn't bother going out of their way to go there. The fact they have done it and it looks so good is to be applauded. It's stupid, it's pointless, but it's great. Alliance clearly has a strong sense of community and they have worked hard to try to draw people there for tourism. In that regard, it's similar to the Enchanted Highway in North Dakota that we saw a couple of weeks ago. Carhenge is great - the idea of using old cars part-buried and stacked on top of each other has 3 parts lunacy and the same amount of brilliance. The cars are mostly rusted 4-doors. The gl*** is removed, replaced with sheetmetal tek-screwed over the openings, then everything sprayed gray to replicate stone (well, try to anyway). Would I recommend to anyone to go there? Abso-******-lutely! It's no Corn Palace, but it's worth a visit.
From Alliance, we still had a couple of hours drive to get back to the I-80 / Platte River corridor. We ended up staying in Ogallala, which is not a bad small town. Day 30 - Ogallala NE to Lincoln NE We headed east along US-30, which is the old Lincoln Highway, beside the railway and river all the way to Grand Island through North Platte and Kearney (medium sized towns) as well as a bunch of other much smaller towns. (From Wikipedia) The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental highway for automobiles across the United States of America. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 1913, the Lincoln Highway ran coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, originally through 13 states: New York,New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. It predated Route 66, the Mother Road, by more than 10 years. It may not be as famous but is just as important. When we got to Grand Island, we looked around town. The Hall County Court House stood out a**** the less grand buildings.
Beaver Crossing is not far from Lincoln, the capital city of Nebraska. As we have done in quite a number of other states, here is a photo of the Capitol Building. That catches us up to date. It's currently Sunday night. Tomorrow, we'll visit Speedway Motors for a look at their museum and then into Omaha. Hope you have enjoyed it so far. Cheers.
Thanks for the Beaver Crossing pictures. My wife sent them on to her uncle so he could see where his mom was born. He is in his 80s. Here is a great Lincoln Highway story since that is what these Es*** Cars were traveling on. Can you imagine making these trips? The road is better now. Sorry for the poor quality.
Great photos and commentary! Has anyone been to the World of Speed Museum in Wilsonville, Oregon, about an hour south of Portland? I'm hoping to get up there within the next few weeks...the photos suggest this is a real wonderland for hotrodders. I believe it opened just this past April. Here's their web site... http://www.worldofspeed.org/ And below is a photo from their web site...I'm ***uming they have the car, which is almost worth the trip all by itself. They also have one of my all-time favorite '34's, the 15 oz. Fuel Coupe.
No problem with the pics of Beaver Crossing, I hope your family like seeing them. We've traveled along a short portion of the Lincoln Highway compared to its overall length, but still a few hundred miles. The road is more intact than US-66 but most of the towns we saw had just grown up as time went by and very few had any kind of tie to its past by way of museum, etc referencing the importance of the highway. They've all been by-p***ed by the interstate now, which is obviously the way to go if you want to get somewhere quickly, but if you're just enjoying the drive for the sake of it, the slower pace and better involvement with the scenery of the by-ways and older highways are hard to beat. Thanks for the Es*** article
Thanks Big Plan Dan. We missed stopping at the World of Speed Museum as we drove up through Oregon. That is one hell of a sweet looking coupe. As you say, it would be worth seeing. Glad you're enjoying the ride along with us.
Thanks 383deuce. Your suggestion of a visit to Speedway Motors Museum was great. Lots of pics to follow.
Day 31 - Lincoln NE to Omaha NE I wasn't sure what to expect at Speedway Motors. When you drive down Victory Lane to their headquarters, you are immediately taken with the size of the business. About a dozen loading docks hint at the size, or think of a oversized Walmart Supercenter, but taller. Inside are enormous shelves stacked to the rafters with gear - there must be many millions of dollars of stock sitting there, and the carpark is full of people who work there - it must be over 100. A very impressive business. As for the museum, I didn't know what to expect and was blown away with the quality of the exhibits and the diversity of cars, engines and memorabilia. Speedy Bill Smith was obviously interested in preserving as much of the history of rodding and racing of all types as he could and had some unique items. At the front door was one of the Miller-Ford V-8 Indy Race Cars Along with a whole room dedicated to Miller's engines which sit there in all their glorious engineered beauty. This alone is worth the price of admission. ....................................... but there's more.
The Jalopy Journal
