The Ups and Downs of getting to Colorado

Evening Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here again with you. Tonight from Ridgeway State Park back in beautiful Colorado… Ridgeway, Colorado to be specific.

After writing last night I took advantage of a crystal clear night to photograph the stars. This was a specific request from a family member in Florida who had seen (as many of us have) a spectacular shot of the night sky including a crystal clear view of the Milky Way with a sandstone arch (from guess where?) in the shot. Having visited Arches National Park, I now know that most of these “stars and arches” photos (and there are many) are pictures of Delicate Arch which I photographed from a mile away because I am not ambitious enough to hike all the way there. If you have never seen these pictures, they even make legally blind people emit an audible “Ohhhhhh”. Here's one that I snagged off of Google Images. It seems to have been taken by a photographer named James Brandon:

Anyway, I said to myself “How hard could that be?”. I think the last time I said that I was preparing to see the oldest of our three kids through their teenage years. I headed outside in my pajamas from the time the sun seemed to be down and I could see “many” stars (like maybe 10). At this point, the world began teaching me the way professors in “The Paper Chase” treated lawyer wanna-bes. Lesson 1: The sun doesn't actually go out when it goes down. It takes almost an hour before the entire sky is dark. About 20 minutes of that time is also needed for your eyes to fully adjust to the dark. I was patient enough for that and I had the trusty Canon on its tripod ready to go. I learned that lesson and passed the mid-term. Lesson 2: It takes an illuminated object to get the camera in focus. The whole point of night photography is to get there when illumination is below low. I did the best I could and bathed myself in mock confidence that the camera was a resilient enough instrument to compensate for my approximation. Let's say I took an “incomplete” on that one. Lesson 3: While I do vividly recall seeing the Milky Way as a younger person, I have not gone looking for it in many decades. It seems that over those years my low-light visual acuity has declined by at least enough to make locating the Milky Way on a crystal clear night with 15% humidity at 5,000 feet above sea level… ah… well… impossible. Not to worry. If I photographed the majority of the night sky I could certainly spot it when the pictures were on the computer screen. I forged ahead despite the questionable focus setting of the camera and a complete lack of knowledge about which direction I should point my precise instrument. By this point I'm sensing I am not going to pass and graduate. Lesson 4: I didn't learn this one until later when I looked at the pictures I took. Most of you know that the earth rotates on its axis. Except for one lucky star, the stars appear to us as if they rotate around the sky as a result of the earth's rotation. I, too, knew this but I had not calibrated the degree to which that apparent movement might impact my project. What I now know is that during the 30 seconds of exposure that my camera needed to complete each frame the earth's rotation turned each brilliant star into a small streak. Great news… it really didn't matter if the camera was in focus! Each star was a smudge anyway! (You may know, as my astrophysicist brother taught me at some point, that celestial cameras and telescopes have motors to allow them to follow the stars they are capturing and compensate for the movement of the earth. So, I flunked “Star Photog 101”. Hey, I did complete my refresher course in humility. Here is one picture from the session. Although I had seen two satellites and a shooting star during my hour-long adventure, I did not realize I had missed a third satellite. The streak across this frame is that satellite. If you have never seen a satellite, you should make the effort. The largest man made object in space is the International Space Station. It can been seen regularly all over the earth in the hour just after sunset or the hour just before sunrise (it isn't illuminated like an airplane. We can only see it when it is in sunlight and we are in darkness during those two hours). Here is a web page you can use to see when the ISS is coming over your house: https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/.

So, today was a travel day and an uneventful one (our favorite kind). Google gave us two route choices to get from Devils Garden Campground in Arches NP to Ridgeway State Park, Colorado. One was 3:34 and involved a long trek to the Interstate, a hop across the state line from Utah to Colorado on I-70 then a long trek to Ridgeway. The other was 2 minutes faster and 40 miles shorter. You can imagine the types of roads. Our Airstream has a door mat that says “Adventure Inspired by Airstream”. We all know the adventures that an interstate brings. We took the short route. Here's what that looked like on Google Maps:

Our trip took us back through Moab. It was no more photogenic today than yesterday. Soon we were heading into a different part of Utah than we had ever seen. This wasn't “Mormon Utah” of the Wasatch Range area of Salt Lake, Ogden, Provo, etc.. This wasn't “Ski Utah” of the mountains, nor “National Park Utah” where we had spent the last week. No, this was “Cowboy Utah”. I didn't know there was such a thing. It was a lucky break that we passed through La Sal, Utah. There are three things in La Sal. Two of them were obvious as we entered: 1.) a US Post Office and 2.) The La Sal store. I did not take a picture of either, but I Googled it tonight and it turns out that someone did. Here's what they look like:

It happened that Mrs. C' had some post cards to mail so I said “Shall I pull in to the Post Office” based on her answer, I did. I went in and woke the sleeping post mistress (or at least brought her back to work from a period of deep thought) and gave her the cards. The I asked “If I continue this way to Colorado, how long before I reach a gas station?” She answered “60 miles… in Naturita. Or, you can get gas at the store next to this building”. I replied “OK. That's very helpful. I think I can make it 60 miles on what I've got, but I can't count on it”. So I went next door to inquire about their gasoline. Normally, this step isn't necessary, but there were no gas pumps visible. First off, the shelves in the store were nearly empty, If you wanted a soft drink or a lottery ticket you were in luck here. Something substantial to eat… essential supplies… not so much. There were two other customers in the store. A man dressed in a very dirty blue jump suit with a long scruffy beard, a cowboy hat and… spurs. I do not believe this was a costume. I think this is how he dresses on any given Thurday… or any other day ending in a “y”. He grunted when the lady behind the register asked him anything. The other customer was a man about 60 or so. One collar of his shirt was turned up, evidently by the same gust of wind that hit his scraggly hair. He didn't speak, but he did grin a lot. I felt like I was in a scene from “Utah Deliverance”. As you might expect, nobody in the store looked at me and asked “You from around here?”. Then the proprietor, who was an Asian lady of about 40 years, turned to me and explained in answer to my question that the gas pump was next to the abandoned garage next door. It did not have a working price reading, so you had to tell her how much you wanted to buy, she would tell you how many gallons that was then she would turn on the pump and you were on your honor to pump that amount or come back to cough up the difference. I said “I would like $25 please”. She did the math and said “You should pump 9.6 gallons”. I paid, moved the truck to the pump and pumped my 9.6. The entire time I was believing that if the gas was the same quality as the rest of La Sal that somewhere before we made the 3,000 foot climb ahead of us that we would be on the roadside staring at a disabled rig and a “no service” message on our cell phones. I'm sure you think I've exaggerated this. I did take one meaningful picture to document our adventures today. Let me share it:

 

If you've followed along on our trips you know I apply the Silver Cliche' Authenticity Test (SCAT) to various places. Our low point remains Jackson, Wyoming (a record I believe will never be broken). La Sal, Utah is off the scale.

So on we went. During the day we crossed Paradox Valley, Colorado. This vast and unknown (to me and I believe 99.999% of Americans) place was a beautiful valley about 2,000 feet deep and 2-3 miles across and 15 miles long with a flat valley floor. It is a “paradox” because the only river in it runs perpendicular to the axis of the valley. It literally comes through a cut in the 2,000 foot tall cliffs on one side, crosses the valley floor and heads out another cut on the other side. During the day we climbed about 10,000 feet in total as we crossed three separate passes. Then after each we descended steep grades totaling about 7,000 feet. In other words, we are 3,000 higher tonight in the Rockies than we were when the day started. The first descent was shortly after La Sal and placed us on the Paradox Valley floor. It was a 9% grade with a 15 MPH hairpin turn at the bottom. This was only our second 9% grade (the other heading east from the Big Horn National Forest in Wyoming included flashing lights, runaway truck ramps and all the bells and whistles). This one had some guardrails… and not much more. You may understand why Mrs. C' vetoed my suggestion that this could make a great “Silver Cliche' Driving Experience” photo series. The highest point in the day came near the end as we passed Telluride, Colorado and headed the last 20 miles to Ridgeway. The top of the pass was 8,980 according to our altimeter. The day that had been 72 and sunny in Moab, Utah was now 36 degrees and… snow flurries. We even saw a sign at one point that said that this Colorado route has a tire chain law. Violators were subject to a $500 - $1,000 fine. The requirement was to have chains available from September to May. Wait a minute. This is May. Holy cow, they expect me to have chains on Memorial Day. We need to get back to Florida!

So, we made it, checked in, got settled, grilled out, enjoyed having electricity again and used it to make shortcakes to hold up our strawberries. And now its raining, or sleeting, or something. Time to call it a night.