Sunday Drive

We decided to take a drive Sunday after church and take the long scenic route home. I'd packed a few sandwiches and chips and we thought we'd have a nice little picnic about half way through our drive. We stopped at an old shack house (the middle picture) that was next to an old loading dock for mine cars. We ate our lunch and the girls scavanged around looking at the shale and quartz that was all over the ground. Then we continued on our way. On the map/atlas we were using it showed good dirt roads the way we wanted to go, at least the map showed the road was as good as the one we live on. It is a gravel road that we can go 60-70 mph on with no problem. The map was wrong.

The road was good up to a point then it became just a two track road that got worse and worse as we drove farther and farther along (top picture). The road became so bad we were bumping back and forth and even mud-bogging in some places. We had less than a half tank of gas in our Suburban when we started and when the road got bad we realized we didn't have enough to turn around and go all the way back the way we had come. We had to keep plowing ahead. Poor Marie got car sick. Thank goodness for the plastic ziploc sandwich bags! When she filled one up we chucked it out the window. (No we were not concerned about the environment at that point!)

Needless to say after driving for three hours on terrible dirt road (and towards the end NO ROAD) we were all glad to make it back home with the Suburban running almost on fumes. Did I mention we both had forgotten to bring our cell phones and also our GPS so I kept having this vision that I'd have to stay with the girls and try to keep them warm while Joseph went walking to the nearest ranch (we could see it about 8 miles away) to get help. Sure glad we didn't have to do that!

We did see some pretty sights, though. The bottom pic is of the 'Slumbering Hills' and the 'Bloody Runs' together. The 'Bloody Runs' have the snow on them. We live between those two mountain ranges so it was neat to see them both together like that. We passed about 6 or 7 windmills. They are set up for the cattle that run on the BLM rangeland. I'll have to tell about the windmills in another post.

Next time we'll think twice about going for a drive on Sunday. And be more prepared by bringing our phones and GPS and NOT trusting the map. (We've labeled the road we took 'The Road From Hell' on our map).