I like an occasional automobile road trip. I just returned from an adventure to St. George, Utah for a week long excursion billed as "improve your golf game". This was a Road Scholar program. It was the first Road Scholar adventure for me. It was a lot of fun; golf instruction in a group environment for three mornings, 9-holes of golf with foursomes picked by the programleader from the 19 participants. A bus tour of Zion followed on day four. Day five was 18 holes using the scramble format. The golf courses in St. George are almost surrealistic with multiple shades of green against backgrounds of beautiful golf course homes and distant red bluffs and mesa. I don't normally golf alot but have played some and knew about the scenary in the area beforehand.
Following the conclusion of that program, I took the long way home. Highway 50 in Nevada is billed as the loneliest highway in the USA. I drove it long ago and wanted to experience it once more. I made a hotel reservation using Hotwire.com in Elko, Nevada thinking that I would have a leisurely three or four hour northerly drive to Elko, overnight and then drive back to Colorado Springs the next day. When I used Mapquest to confirm the distance and time, I was shocked to discover that I really wanted to make a reservation in Ely rather Elko. The distance and time were therefore considerably longer, about seven hours, plus a time zone change. Unable to change a non-refundable reservation, I decided to go to Elko anyway and drive an additional section of Highway 50 heading west. I stopped in Ely on the way at the Hotel Nevada and enjoyed an incredible $6.00 steak and eggs breakfast in an old timey hotel/casino restaurant that played soft 70's rock music. One of the walls were adorned with pictures of race cars from the Silver State Classic Challenge. I made it to Elko in time for the last half of the Bronco's football game, stopping at a Pony Express memorial along the way.
Now I was faced with the decision as to whether to drive I-80 back to Colorado Springs and forgo Highway 50 or return to Ely once more and drive the section of Highway 50 that I had already covered. I decided to return to Ely, stopping for breakfast once more at the Hotel Nevada, and drive Highway 50 Easterly across Utah to connect with I-70 near Salina, Utah. This was a long day, almost 18 hours from Elko, leaving in the dark at 6:00 am and arriving at my home in Colorado Springs about midnight. I stopped for a few naps, still I was glad to see that of course I still have it --- the ability to drive long distances.
I took a single CD on this trip - A Traveling Wilbury's edition that I played repeatedly when I couldn't listen to the local NPR radio.
I should have road trips out of my system for a while. I finally bonded with my car - a 2010 Ford Explorer XLT with cloth seats that I have come to appreciate for how warm, quiet, efficient, and reliable it truly is.
