Two High Points on a Short Road Trip

Very teensy town and very large statue along Interstate 80

This past weekend four of us did a short road trip -- Boulder-Cheyenne-Laramie-Snowy Range-Boulder. Of Interstate 80's 2,909 miles between the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and New York-New Jersey's George Washington Bridge, the 47 modest miles from Cheyenne to Laramie contain two places that are worth stopping at. They are lliteral and figurative high points along a stretch of freeway that passes through a lot of wide-open country.

Buford, Wyoming - Pop. 1

How could we not stop in Buford, Wyoming -- population 1 and its own zip code. It is purportedly the smallest town in America and also the highest town between along I-80's entire route.  Just south of the Exit 335 off the Interstate. road, we found  a gateway to a ranch and Buford-- the signs below, one house, the Buford Trading Post and a bunch of gas pumps.

The sole resident wasn't manning the store, but his photograph graced the counter. Regretfully I neglected to ask his name, but I took a picture of his picture.

Buford was not always so tiny. Its population was purportedly about 2,000 as the transcontinental railroad was being built westward across Wyoming.

Lincoln Monument

The Lincoln Memorial is, of course, in Washington, DC, but the Lincoln Monnument is just of Exit 239. It is visible from the Interstate that closely follows the historic Lincoln Highway (US 30), the first auto road to cross the country.To honor this achievement as well as the president who most fervently believe in a union of all the states, Robert Russin, a University of Wyoming art professor and a Lincoln admirer, sculpted a monumental, 13 1/2-foot Lincoln head resting on a 35-foot stone base.

It originally stood at Sherman Summit, at 8,878 feet above sea level and the highest point on old Lincoln Highway, but when when I-80 was opened in 1969, the head was moved about 1 mile to this highpoint on the Interstate. It too is visible from the highway, but its worth a stop.

Pull into the Summit Rest Area and go into the visitor center, not just to use the restroom and have adrink of water, but also to watch a short interpretive film and look into the small museum room with exhibits about Wyoming and its natural and human history.

If you too are road-tripping through Wyoming in I-80, eachof these attractions is worth a stop.

Beguiling Shenandoah Valley Loop Drive

A spring drive through a historic American landscape

Scenic drives were part of my childhood vacations in New England, because my parents' generation, with World War II gas rationing etched into their memories, liked to get into the car and go. Similarly, my first husband was fond of to driving around and sightsee through the car window too.

In my present Colorado life, when my husband and I drive somewhere, it is to do something, not as an end unto itself.

I am visiting cousins in Maryland. She is ill, weak and has serious mobility issues, so as a treat, we took a drive southwestward into the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. And it was a treat for us all. As we left the metro area, we passed blooming beds of roadside daffodils. In the valley, we drove through quaint and charming old towns, past places where Stonewall Jackson's Confederate troops trumped Union soldiers, past historic markers, across the gap where George Washington planned to make his last stand if his Revolutionary army couldn't stand up to the Redcoats, past farms, along the meandering Shenandoah River close to vineyards in this increasingly prominent wine area and through woods where trees were budding and, in some cases blossoming. All this in warm sunshine even as Colorado was blanketed in an impressive (and impressively wet) spring storm.

My cousin's husband, a history buff, narrated interesting facts about Revolutionary and Civil War strategy and battle tactics that took place right there. The stories came to life when the sites were right there. The old buildings -- older than anything in Colorado -- were lovely. The mountains have a gentle roundness but are actually rugged and were more so to 18th and 19th century soldiers. The history is interesting to listen to but frankly more than I am willing to delve into. But beyond

everything touristic and historic, I treasured the opportunity to share this day with cousins whom I care about deeply.

I forgot my camera at home, so I'm grateful that the Shenandoah Valley Web folks have made these available to remind me of this precious day and to share them here.

Egypt: On the Road

Views along the coastal road linking Cairo and Alexandria

I have no delusions that a tour bus ride on the 130 or so miles between Egypt's two largest city provides great insights, but it does offer snippets of life along Egypt's north coast. Here are some random images:

Just getting out of Cairo (population about 18 million and growing fast) takes some time -- little wonder with crowded roads (below):

In a country fabled for antiquity, the capital is growing, growing and growing, as evidenced by the buildings under construction in the distant outskirts (below), some legally built and others illegally erected on designated agricultural land:

Surprisingly mixed in among the buildings are farm fields (below) that are still being worked by hand:

As our bus passed a moving open-bed truck, I was able to snap this picture of a barefoot man (below) squatting atop a load of bundled brochures. A guy doesn't need a seatbelt when he's not on a seat:

Fanciful Euro-Ottoman-inspired wedding cake building (below) on the outskirts of Cairo:

Large and small mosques dot the route. All are topped with a dome, and some (like the one below) have one minaret, others two, occasionally three:

Housing construction is making a sprawling city even 'sprawlinger" -- and Western-style real estate sales are taking hold (three images below):

The farther we rolled on from Cairo, the more pick-up trucks we saw (two images below) -- loaded with cargo, fruit, people, whatever. I saw one with washing machine, one with a cow and a calf, and one with a motorcycle. Chevrolet trucks are surprisingly common, even though Toyotas, Hyundais and Hondas seem to prevail in the car category:

The round-topped towers below are not Angkor Wat wannabes but pigeon houses:

At the Master rest stop (below)...

...there stilll is service, includng hand car wash (below):

There's a lot of roadside junk (below): crumbling buildings, broken-down cars, small businesses, stacks of tires and litter, lots of litter:

The eastern reaches of Alexandria display that city's first fanciful buildings, like the one below signal the approach into Egypt's second (and most European) city:

Slides -- Snow, Then Rocks -- Wreak Havoc on Colorado Roads

Traffic from the Front Range to and from Aspen and Utah forced to take long detour

An avalanche on Friday night caused the closure of U.S. 40 over Berthoud Pass. The snow was cleared off the road by Saturday morning, so it was business as usual for skiers and riders heading for Winter Park. A rockslide in Glenwood Canyon around midnight on Monday morning was far more severe and will take longer to clean up -- to say nothing of road and bridge repairs.

Some 20 boulders ranging from 3 feet to 10 feet in diameter and tons of additional debris fell onto Interstate 70, created eight craters and dips, exposing the highway's underwiring, taking out a bridge and destroying guardails. Both sides of the highway were affected. In 1995, Aspen writer Kathleen Krieger Daily and her two young sons were killed in a Glenwood Canyon slide. Fortunately, at this late hour, none none came down vehicles this time, but drivers were forced to make a 200-mile detour between Glenwood Springs and Denver or elsewhere on the Front Range and will be for weeks.

According to the Colorado Department of Transportation, the massive slide occurred on the west side of the Hanging Lake Tunnels,  where two bridges cross the Colorado River and Union Pacific Railroad tracks just west of the Shoshone Dam and the Hanging Lake trail parking area. CDOT says an average of 19,800 use Glenwood Canyon on an average day.

Other than traffic to/from Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction and points between, the biggest affect will be on skiers heading to or from Aspen from the Front Range. In summer, traffic can use Highway 82 over Independence Pass between Leadville and Aspen, but that road is not plowed out until May, and traffic must use 82 from Glenwood Springs that dead-ends in Aspen in winter. In addition, as slickrock season begins in Moab, cyclists headed to and from Utah will have to adjust their routes.

P.S. On March 9, the Aspen Skiing Company reminded visitors about access options to making the long detour, which both Gray Line Aspen/Snowmass and Colorado Mountain Express are doing. The trip is currently six hours from Eagle (287 miles) and seven and a half hours form Denver (379 miles) -- but at least someone else is doing the driving. It is also possible to fly directly to Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, or to Vail/Eagle County, Grand Junction or Montrose/Delta County.

Amtrak's daily service is scheduled to depart Denver’s Union Station to Glenwood Springs (only 45 minutes from Aspen/Snowmass) at 8:05 a.m. and arrive in Glenwood at 1:53 p.m. The return from Glenwood to Denver departs at 12:50 p.m. and arrives in Denver at 7:18 p.m. As a bonus, it's a simply gorgeous ride. Shuttle services, taxi, rental cars and RFTA public bus are options  for the 40-mile trip between Glenwood Springs and Aspen/Snowmass. Shuttle services and taxis are from Denver International Airport to Union Station, RTD's SkyRide (Route AF) goes to the nearby Market Street Station. The Amtrak schedule is such that most visitors will be spending a night in Denver before and another after their ski vacation in Aspen/Snowmass.

Travel Thumbnail #3: Leadville is Fine Fall Destination

This is the third in a series of periodic reports on specific places I've visited -- and which you might want see to as well. Post a comment or let me know directly what you think of this Travel Babel feature.

The Place: Leadville, CO

The Story: Leadville was one of the greatest of all Western boomtowns. The first short boom followed the discovery of gold in California Gulch that lasted from 1859 until 1865. Leadville's bigger, longer boom began with discovery of silver in 1873, increased in 1877 when a smelter was constructed there, began tapering off in the early 1880s and was dealt a dreadful blow in the silver crash of 1893. In between, fortunes were made from mining (rags-to-riches-rags Horace A. W. Tabor with the Little Pittsburg and Matchless Mines), Charles Boettcher (hardware in Leadville, later banking), David May (clothing in Leadville, eventually May D&F, now part of Macy's) and Meyer and Benjamin Guggenheim (bookkeepers at AY & Minnie Mines, later banking). Margaret "The Unsinkable Molly" Brown, Doc Holliday Bat Masterson, the Earps and Oscar Wilde all have a place in Leadville history. At its peak, Leadville boasted a population of 40,000. It is is the highest incorporated city in the US and currently has about 2,700 residents.

My Trip: Kinfolk from Washington, DC, were in Breckenridge this past week using one of their timeshare weeks. By the time I was able to break away to spend a day with them, they had gone fishing and driven the gorgeous Boreas Pass Road on the route of the old Denver South Park & Pacific (DSP&P) Railroad between Breckenridge and Como. The road is not plowed and closes by November 1, so this was a good time for them to drive it.

Neither is a hiker, but both are history buffs, so I suggested an excursion to Leadville. If the weather was good, we could stroll along Harrison Avenue, the history-filled main street, and if it got cold, rainy, windy or even snowy, I figured that we could head for the fascinating National Mining Hall of Fame & Museum that provides such insight into the mining history of Colorado and elsewhere.

For most of out time there, the weather was lovely with bright sun and minimal wind. Such attractions as the Tabor Opera House and the Healy House were already closed, the opera house for the season and the house museum for the remainder of that quiet day. We sauntered along with the visitors' center walking tour map in hand, admiring the 19th-century buildings and talking about what once was there.


I couldn't resist a sweet treat from Hundley's (below left), the souvenir and gift shop where Charlotte Hundley has been turning out fabulous fudge since she and her husband, Keith, opened the doors in 1985. I shared! We stopped for a light bite at the Provin' Grounds Coffee and Bakery (right), a warm, welcoming, off-beat cafe. The two are roughly kitty-corner from each other -- Hundley's at 623 Harrison Avenue and Provin' Grounds at #508.








We then drove south on US 24, passing the imposing hulks of Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive, Colorado's two highest mountains, and then turned west onto Colorado 82 to Twin Lakes for some mountain and foliage views across the lake (below).








We retraced our tracks through Leadville and continued to the top of Tennessee Pass to pay homage to the imposing memorial (below) to the 10th Mountain Division troops who where housed at nearby Camp Hale and trained as ski troops at what it is now Ski Cooper, a small, snow-sure ski area at whose entrance the memorial stands.


Unsurprisingly, it did start to rain as we drove back over Fremont Pass, where the mammoth Climax Molybdenum Mine (below) is being readied for reopening. At the end of a satisfying scenic day, we stopped for dinner at FoodHedz World Cafe in Frisco before I returned to Boulder and they drove back to Breckenridge.

Cost: Visiting Leadville is, of course, free. Some attractions do have an admission charge, and some are seasonal.

More Information: Leadville-Twin Lakes Chamber of Commerce, 809 Harrison Ave., Leadville, CO 80461; 719-486-3900.

Leadville is south of Interstate 70, via US 24 from Minturn, Grand Junction and the west or Colorado Hwy 91 from Copper Mountain, Denver and the east. From Colorado Springs, Salida or the south, take US 24.

It's Elk BuglingTime

The haunting mating call of bull elk attracts cows -- and spectators

During the autumn rut, bull elk battle each other for dominance over a harem of cows. Their haunting, almost plaintive cry resonates from the mountainsides that enfold Rocky Mountain valleys. At dusk, the animals emerge from the high country and the forests to tussle and to mate. When you see them, you marvel that such large, stately animals could utter such a high-pitched shriek. The bugling, the fighting and the mating go on at night, and as the sun rises, the animals begin retreating again and the valleys fall quite for the day.

For us, a drive to Rocky Mountain National Park is an easy destination for this annual spectacle. It think of it as an accessible wildlife experience, sort of like a "National Geographic Special" come to life. For us, coming from Boulder for an evening, the park's prime elk-viewing is Horseshoe Park, a huge, riparian meadow conveniently visible directly off US 34 not far from Estes Park. You can hear the bulls' eerie sound on the Rocky Mountain Drama website.

With no natural predators in or near the park, other than a few coyotes and hunters who take out animals that stray beyond the park boundaries, the elk population is enormous, so visitors are almost sure to view the herd in action. In fact, there are so many elk there now that the vegetation is suffering, the park service is embarking on a "management plan" to try balance a healthy, sustainable herd and the aspen and willow that they feed on.

Rangers who have to balance flora, fauna and visitors, but for us who love to see animals in the wild, elk encounters are thrilling, no matter how many times we have experienced them. In addition to Horseshoe Park, we have also seen/heard bugling in Moraine Park and Upper Beaver Meadows. And beginning in fall and continuing through the winter, we have seen elk right in Estes Park. If you're driving through, note that they don't always wait for the light or cross at crosswalks.

Other places offering such elk encounters include Glacier National Park, MT; Grand Teton National Park, WY; Wind Cave National Park, SD; Yellowstone National Park, WY/MT; and in Canada, Jasper National Park and Banff National Park, both in Alberta. There are of course, millions of acres of other public lands where elk abound, but so do hunters, so I'd rather direct you to places where you're more likely not to get shot.

Some years ago, while visiting along the coast of Maine, I heard the unmistakable sound of bugling elk. I thought I was hallucinating, but it turned out that I was near the Bayley Hill Elk & Deer Farm!

Road Tripping in the Rockies

When it comes to driving in the mountains, it's always something

Winter driving in the Rocky Mountains often provides such challenges as slick roads, temporary avalanche-control closures, longer closures when a slide hits the highway, SUVs that slid off the road and caused rubbernecker delays, jackknifed 18-wheelers, trucks waiting to pull into chain-up areas and meanwhile blocking traffic lanes, just plain heavy skier traffic (I-70 west of Denver means epic traffic jams, winter weekend after winter weekend), etc.

Summer is roadwork season when highways and local streets in mountain communities are repaired, resurface or at least repainted (winter sanding can erase the white and yellow lines. Bridges are rebuilt. Exit ramps are widened or reconfigured. Cone zones prevail. Give yourself some leeway if you need to get somewhere at a certain time.

Backroad to Los Alamos

Jemez Road is a quiet byway for shunpiking Interstate 25

When we drive to and from Albuquerque, we almost always take Interstate 25, and since many of central New Mexico's most interesting events, museums and restaurants are in Santa Fe, we find ourselves on the Albuquerque-Santa Fe stretch of the highway over and over. Someday, I'm going to take the Rail Runner Express train (below, heading south out of Santa Fe), but it didn't happen this trip.

On our most recent trip, we wanted to make a day trip to Los Alamos on a gray, sometimes- rainy Tuesday, so instead to reprising I-25, we followed New Mexico Highway 4, the Jemez Road. Much of it travels through tribal land, where photography is generally discouraged -- if not downright prohibited. Exterior shots of the Jemez Pueblo's Walatowa Visitor Center (below) are permitted, but the small tribal museum is also off-limits for photography.

The small, artsy Anglo community of Jemez Springs with a handful of galleries, shops, restaurants, accommodations, the Jemez State Monument and several hot springs, makes for a fine quiet getaway from Albuquerque, Santa Fe or Los Alamos, but the monument (ruins of an ancient pueblo) was closed the day we passed through, so we just stopped at the Highway 4 Cafe for coffee and pastry -- both of which were very, very good.

Most of the roadside pullouts on public land north and east of the pueblo provide fishing access, but one is a bona fide scenic and geologic attractions. The Soda Dam, one of the area hot springs, is right off the road, so of course, we stopped.

So did other travelers, and many of them were wandering around the travertine formation.

The highlight is a waterfall that emerges out of the tangled rock layers.

Valles Caldera National Preserve was created in 2000 to preserve and protect the 89,000-acre Baca Ranch in a volcanic crater in the Jemez Mountains. The preserve also represents a unique experiment in public land management, combining historic ranch operations with programs and facilities for visitors.

Leaving Valles Caldera, the route passes through the section of Bandelier National Monument burned during the Cerro Grande Fire of May 2000. It started as a prescribed burn that went out of control and ultimately burned about 48,000 acres, destroyed 235 homes and other structures, threatened the towns of Los Alamos and White Rock from which more than 18,000 residents were evacuated and threatened the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Natural revegetation has occurred in the nearly nine-and-a-half years since then, but the Cerro Grande fire remains searned into the consciousness of all who were impacted.

On a previous visit to Los Alamos, we visited the Bradbury Science Museum and the Los Alamos Ranch School, where the Manattan Project was hatched. My husband loves surplus stores, and this trip had the goal of visiting the Black Hole Sales Company, a legendary surplus store established by the late "Atomic Ed" Grothus. I took a few snapshots (below), but if this interests you, I urge you to click here for photos and text by Dave Bullock, a California programmer, photographer and blogger who is for more competent at conveying the spirit of the place than I am.

I couldn't begin to identify most of the objects in this 19,000-square-foot boneyard for surplus from the nuclear labs.

If you needed some cords to connect this to that, you might just be able to find it here. My husband, a connoisseur of surplus stores, praised the Black Hole for its organization.

I got a kick out of such whimsies as a barrel labeled "Empty" but clearly full of pipe couplings.

My husband remarked that I was "lucky" that the Black Hole was not in Denver, and I suppose I am. His eyes lit up at many of the objects that I couldn't identify, but if it were closer, I suppose I might be living with some of them. The Black Hole is at 4015 Arkansas, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87544; 505-662-5053. It is open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Tuesday through Saturdays (except major holidays).