mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-07-20 08:05 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-07-20 08:05 pm
Friday, July 15:
Slightly more belated. Friday was our travel day back, and it was... rough.
It turned out Eastbound I-70 *was* open (it had only been closed on Wednesday when we were heading west because they had to retrieve a rolled semi.) So we didn't have to plan on the extra two hour detour. So we had plenty of time!
There's a herd of feral ("wild") horses in the Grand Junction area... we've wanted to try to see them before, but have always been on a short timeline where we couldn't make the side trip. We were lamenting that we'd missed the turn to go see them... and just a few more miles down the road, there's a sign! A nice big official brown road sign, saying that there's access to the horse area at the next exit!
So we followed some pretty faded road signs pointing us toward the BLM land that the herd is managed on... the road turned to gravel pretty quickly, but was no big deal.
UNfortunately, there is nothing that gives ANY indication that the road will *rapidly* deteriorate in quality after about mile 5, and that it is 25 fucking miles to the border of the herd management area. Worse, the terrible road will offer very few opportunities to safely turn around!
As I said before, a good part of the issue was absolutely sunk cost fallacy. Having no idea how far it was, it was hard to want to turn around, because we'd already spent so much time and effort, that the worry that we were missing it by just one more mile was a real one.
25 miles and nearly two hours later (THAT IS HOW BAD THE SHITTY ROADS WERE) we made it to the BLM land... and about three miles in we reached a point where it was clear that we would absolutely get stuck if we kept trying to go forward. Alex had to reverse us down a steep, deeply rutted dirt road for about a half mile or so just to get us to somewhere we DID have a hope of turning around.
So two MORE hours out, we saw no horses, and wasted FOUR hours of travel time, all of which was spent sure we were going to wind up with horrific car trouble in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles away from anything resembling cell service.
Fortunately, other than the anxiety and misery and wasted time, it was all fine.
At least there were some nice views.
And the rather extreme delay did put us in place to see a pretty nice double rainbow.
This lizard was the largest sign of life we saw on the detour.
This was pretty neat: this particular tree was pretty obviously struck by lightning. It isn't dead, but is pretty clearly burned, and surrounded by a fairly perfect circle of burn.
And some pretty nice stripes in the rocks.
Very perfect placement of a sticker at the rest stop we pulled over at to look at the rainbow. :)
And one more of the rainbow and some lovely flowers.
It turned out Eastbound I-70 *was* open (it had only been closed on Wednesday when we were heading west because they had to retrieve a rolled semi.) So we didn't have to plan on the extra two hour detour. So we had plenty of time!
There's a herd of feral ("wild") horses in the Grand Junction area... we've wanted to try to see them before, but have always been on a short timeline where we couldn't make the side trip. We were lamenting that we'd missed the turn to go see them... and just a few more miles down the road, there's a sign! A nice big official brown road sign, saying that there's access to the horse area at the next exit!
So we followed some pretty faded road signs pointing us toward the BLM land that the herd is managed on... the road turned to gravel pretty quickly, but was no big deal.
UNfortunately, there is nothing that gives ANY indication that the road will *rapidly* deteriorate in quality after about mile 5, and that it is 25 fucking miles to the border of the herd management area. Worse, the terrible road will offer very few opportunities to safely turn around!
As I said before, a good part of the issue was absolutely sunk cost fallacy. Having no idea how far it was, it was hard to want to turn around, because we'd already spent so much time and effort, that the worry that we were missing it by just one more mile was a real one.
25 miles and nearly two hours later (THAT IS HOW BAD THE SHITTY ROADS WERE) we made it to the BLM land... and about three miles in we reached a point where it was clear that we would absolutely get stuck if we kept trying to go forward. Alex had to reverse us down a steep, deeply rutted dirt road for about a half mile or so just to get us to somewhere we DID have a hope of turning around.
So two MORE hours out, we saw no horses, and wasted FOUR hours of travel time, all of which was spent sure we were going to wind up with horrific car trouble in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles away from anything resembling cell service.
Fortunately, other than the anxiety and misery and wasted time, it was all fine.
At least there were some nice views.
And the rather extreme delay did put us in place to see a pretty nice double rainbow.
This lizard was the largest sign of life we saw on the detour.
This was pretty neat: this particular tree was pretty obviously struck by lightning. It isn't dead, but is pretty clearly burned, and surrounded by a fairly perfect circle of burn.
And some pretty nice stripes in the rocks.
Very perfect placement of a sticker at the rest stop we pulled over at to look at the rainbow. :)
And one more of the rainbow and some lovely flowers.
no subject
LIZARD!
I love the rainbows! I remember that some of the most dramatic and CLEAR (like you could make out every single color perfectly) rainbows I've seen to date were in New Mexico. I know that's now where you are, but it seems like there's something in the atmosphere out that way that produces amazing rainbows.
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And I loved the lizard. I wished I could get a better pic, but it was out the opposite side of the car, and by the time I got stuff out of my lap and out of the truck, it would have been long gone.
The rainbows were great! It's funny you mention that - we had a pretty enormous and dramatic rainbow near Denver yesterday, and Alex mentioned that he thought he'd seen more rainbows since moving out here than he ever had when he lived out east. Colorado and New Mexico definitely both have very wide open skies, which I think helps! And maybe the lower general humidity? I love them!
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