If you’re just tuning in you can see Days 1 and 2 here.

I woke up in time to see the sunrise at Great Basin National Park.

Here is another view of our campsite.

The only paved road in the park winds up to the trailhead to Wheeler Peak (13,063′ elevation). We didn’t plan on hiking all the way to the peak but hiked to the lakes at the base. The hiking is all above 10,000′.

Stella Lake is the first of two lakes along this trail.

This doe posed nicely for the camera.

This sign indicates that we were about a mile from the trailhead where we started on this loop trail. However, there were signs that said the area was closed due to ongoing work. In fact, the road had been blocked before we got to the end and we’d parked lower than we first planned. Law-abiding citizens that we are, we didn’t take this trail back but took another fork and ended up back-tracking over most of the way we had already walked.

That just meant that we got to spend more time in this gorgeous area and put in about 6 miles that morning.

I’m always the one taking photos. Dan took this one so that I could prove I was there. Funny story, and maybe an example of things to come on this trip–there were two large trucks in this parking lot waiting to get past the gate that is just to the left of those porta-potties. They were full of rock or gravel or whatever they were using for the road surface. However the gate was locked and no one had a key. The drivers were trying to find the right tools to take the gate apart. I figured that one of the trucks could have just rammed the gate (being just a pipe) and driven through, but I wasn’t going to suggest that. We were able to move our truck around to get between the two big ones, but then the traffic was stopped on the way down until the pilot car that was with these trucks could make it down the mountain. So these was the first delay of the trip.

We planned to go to the visitor center and maybe see the Lehman Caves.

We spent a little time at the Visitor Center and I made a point of finding these Tempestry panels, knit by my friend, Lisa. They depict the daily high temperature for a given year and location, in this case 1916 and 2016 here at the park. You can find out more about the Tempestry Project here. This is the same idea I use in my Year to Remember blankets

This was Thursday afternoon and we needed to be in Trinidad Colorado by Friday afternoon. We didn’t have time to take a cave tour, so we’ll have to go back.

We took Highway 50 across Utah. This highway is known as “The Loneliest Road in America”, at least in Nevada. It gets a bad rap because it can be desolate, but this area in Utah known as the San Rafael Swell is stunning. (Click on one of the photos to enlarge and scan through them.)

We were somewhere west of Green River when the traffic stopped. We spent about two hours in stop and go traffic, mostly stopped, with no where to pull off. A friend (the afore-mentioned Lisa) and I were texting at the time and she found a a clue to what was going on–there had been a police chase that ended in a fatality.

Later I searched for myself and found a local news report that confirmed a chase that followed an attempt at a traffic stop. The driver passed into the median and eventually wrecked the car killing himself and another person. By the time we got to this area where we’d be able to get to an offramp our truck indicators showed that it was overheating.

We finally got to the exit and were able to let the truck cool down. Fortunately it hadn’t caused damage.

We headed south towards Moab as the sun was setting.

Not long after we turned south two sheriff trucks passed with lights and sirens. One of them weaved back and forth, stopping traffic. We were the first vehicle behind the trucks. The deputy told us that there was a pursuit in progress and, if the vehicle being pursued hit their trucks, then we should “get out of here”. That was a little nerve wracking, especially after the last episode and seeing these cops with guns drawn. Eventually the car drove past in the northbound lane with at least a dozen cop cars following. The car was being driven on rims–there must have been a spike strip that the driver ignored. All those vehicles went by and then these two turned around and followed It seems as though for the next hour we continued to see law enforcement vehicles going that direction. I never did find out what that chase was about.

These stories are not the most significant ones of our trip, but the situations pop to the top when we think about the day.

We drove south on Hwy. 491 and into Colorado and then turned east on 160. I followed the big map book and found where the highway was bordered on both sides by USFS land. There were some roads shown on the map where we could get off of the main highway. We didn’t need a campground as long as we had a safe place to pull off. We were in the San Juan National Forest and found a road that turned north. We found a spot where we could pull off that road. I think we were still eating bagels and bagged salad that we brought from home. That was dinner. We rolled out the sleeping bags in the truck and went to bed.