On the road again… a few weeks ago.

OK, here's the deal. Sue and I went on a road trip earlier in the month, took pictures, kept a log, saw cool stuff, ate well - the usual deal. However, part of the plan is staying away from civilization as much as possible, so we weren't posting the blog as we went.
Now we're home, catching up, and we have photos and the travel journal. I'm gonna post stuff serially, as I get time to process it.
So, here's the first batch, from May 11th and 12th:

May 11, 2011
On the road again…
I'm heading off again, to the same general area, but this time with Sue along.
She hasn't been able to come along on the last couple trips, and while traveling alone has its attractions, it's also great to have company.
We're aiming for the southwest, without many firm plans. There are things I'd like to see again, things I'd like to show Sue, and a lot of places neither of us have seen yet. 
We'll head for Dinosaur National Monument, on the border of Colorado and Utah. It's a place we both want to see, and it's as far north as we want to travel.  From there we'll work our way south, exploring as we go.
I'll be posting my travel journal, but updates will be sporadic, since we'll be camping as much as possible and staying in the un "improved" places.


May 12, 2011
Shakedown Cruise
We drove to Ogallala Nebraska yesterday. When we started out, it was hot - in the 70's when we were setting out at 7 am, well into the 80's in Iowa.  We knew we'd be crossing the cold front somewhere, but it turned out we were paralleling it.  We could see the line of black sky south of I-80 for quite a while.  Then, luckily when we were at a rest area, it came over us.  Hail, 60 mph winds, and lightning battered us for about 10 minutes. After that, it was still raining hard, but we could drive.
We flirted with the storms all the way through Nebraska, then crossed into a low near Ogallala. Temperature dropped into the 40s, very windy, occasional heavy rain - just what we wanted for our first night camping.
Our destination for the night was a state recreation area at a man-made lake - Ogallala Reservoir. The season wasn't really underway yet, but you could camp if you wanted - just leave your money in the box.
There was a lot of interesting waterfowl about, unfortunately it was getting dark and we had trouble identifying many of them.
I did see a Whooping Crane - that was a treat. I checked later, the reservoir is right on their flyway. Something to keep in mind for future trips.
As we were setting up camp, it started raining - hard. Large drops, blown by 30 mph wind.  Luckily, we were pretty well set up in the back of the truck, and I'd found a campsite where I could park pointing into the wind, so it was relatively cozy in the truck bed.  We ate our dinner in there, and went to sleep early.
It poured and occasionally stormed all night, but we were comfortable. This was Sue's first night sleeping in the truck, and we had to figure out how to set up the sleeping pads, the double sleeping bag, the lamp, etc. It would have been easier on a pleasant evening, but it worked out fine, and we figured we were probably prepared for the worst of it from here on out.

Old movie theater sign on a gray morning in Nebraska

The next morning it was still windy and raining on and off.  We quickly jumped in the truck and drove to town, had breakfast at a nice little cafe, and headed west.
We made good time across the rest of Nebraska and into Wyoming. It was cold and rainy, changing to wet snow as we gained altitude.  At Cheyenne, I-80 was closed.
They don't give you any information as to why, or when it might open again. We did some shopping and drove around town a bit. The weather was not conducive to sightseeing, so waiting for the freeway to open again was frustrating.
With 80 closed and the weather not improving, we decided to take advantage of our flexibility. It was going to be quite cold at Dinosaur, even thought it was supposed to clear eventually, and we decided we'd had enough of cold and rain.
The weather looked much better further south, so we headed down I-25 toward New Mexico. The sun came out by Pueblo, Colorado, a welcome sight. The temperature kept rising, into the low 70's.

Mountains west of the high plains.

We found a promising Forest Service campground - Black Canyon - in the national forest just east of Santa Fe, and made it there by 6:30, plenty of time to get situated and have dinner before dark.
It's now Friday morning, we're sitting in camp, warming up in the sun.  It got rather cool overnight - around 33 -  but it's warming up nicely. We're starting to get acclimated to the altitude - this is around 8500 feet. Sue's plotting possible routes - we're considering Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, the Malpais, there are a lot possibilities.

Hiking trail from the campground - it's all uphill from here!