Tag Archives: driving

Road Trip

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Loving Fall Travel

We’ve found that early fall is a good time for a vacation. Most of the summer road repair is completed, the places that we’ll visit are less crowded, gasoline prices have come down and lodging is less expensive. So it’s off we go.

We decided to skip the camping this year and instead enjoy the comfortable hotel beds at the stops along our planned itinerary. This trip is probably a 5000 mile journey, but I like driving and my wife Kris doesn’t mind filling in once in a while. She has plenty of books to read during the long hours in the car.

From our home in Grand Rapids we start with a long initial drive to Salt Lake City to visit our grandson in college. Next across the sparsely populated central Nevada to Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite to view its sweet valley and giant sequoias. It’s a short hop to Reno for a few days stay with family. Then it’s through the mountainous forest of Idaho and Montana to do some hiking in gorgeous Glacier. We’ll head south to northern Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley and then traverse the torturous Beartooth Hwy before the snow falls. Finally traveling east again we’ll hit Badlands and then head home again through South Dakota.

The car is filled with snacks and drinks for the long hours on the road. And as always I have my photo equipment ready to travel.

We’re going to place a few stickers on our car from our sister company StickItToYourCar.com

We’ll have some new photos from our travels here when we return.

Fill ‘er Up

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This is a visual chronology of gas prices over the years – another one of my photographic idiosyncrasies – why would anyone take a picture of gas station signs?????

It’s interesting to see how the prices have varied so widely over this time span of more than 15 years. I won’t comment on any of the events taking place at the time that might have affected the gas prices.

You can draw your own conclusions.

Aragonite, Utah

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Places that you may never have heard of

Due to my love of traveling I’ve made countless cross country trips by car.

Our interstate highway system gives us easy access to most of the USA. On the road, I’ll sometimes see an exit with a name that I don’t recognize. Places with colorful names stick in my mind. I’d jot down the name and when I get home search to find out about the place I passed. earlier.

Aragonite in the high desert of north central Utah is one such place. Now a ghost town, it was originally set up in the early 1900s to mine the crystalline mineral of the same name. Buildings were erected there to house and supply the miners. These mining operations lasted only a short time but later reopened to quarry mine for limestone. One report says that this mining included construction of shafts and deep holes so if you visit the area, watch your step. There is no longer is any mining in here.

A Desert Remote Locality

You can also tell that Aragonite is remote by the surrounding localities. To the west is the Utah Test and Training Range. This is a military base where supersonic flights are routinely conducted. To the southwest is the Dugway Proving Grounds an Army facility where chemical and biological weapons testing are performed.

Not far from the townsite is the Aptus Incinerator. It is used mainly for hazardous waste disposal including PCBs. The operating company is Clean Harbors which claims “ample on-site storage capacity allows for acceptance of large volumes of material before treatment. The site can also be easily accessed by rail or truck, which keeps transport costs down. And, an on-site lab assures timely approval and efficient processing of shipments.” Clean Harbors has been cited multiple times for violating EPA regulations.

Sometimes places are deliberately remote to keep people away from them.

I found that aside from its interesting name Aragonite’s history and surroundings are a worthwhile stop the next time I’m in Utah.

Still Interested

More of my places that you may never have heard of are in

Wamsutter, Wyoming
Aragonite, Utah
Dunphy, Nevada