After four full days of just traveling, we finally had our first official day of sight seeing.
When I was 12 years old, I had the chance to summit Mount Elbert in Colorado. While standing on that mountaintop, I had this idea of traveling to all of the highest spots in the USA. The pipe dream of a preteen? Maybe. But I have been slowly chipping away at this goal for the last 26 years. Black Mesa marked my 10th high point!
When making plans for this cross country trip of ours, I thought we had a good chance of seeing a few high points along the way. Black Mesa in the northwest panhandle of Oklahoma was the first on my list for this trip.
If you have been to this part of Oklahoma, you know that we were in rural ranch country, with very little around us. At one point there were signs saying we were 10 miles north of Texas, and I'm pretty sure Colorado was just as close, to the north of us.
We followed the winding roads through the mesas back to our high point.
Since it was hot and we were traveling with our dog and kids, we didn't feel like it would be prudent to do the four-mile hike to the top.
After exploring for a bit, we settled for having a picnic at the base. I'm still counting this high point even though we didn't make it to the top. I don't know if we will be back and we did make it to the base, and sometimes that is good enough.
Quote from Isaac: One of us got bit by a thorn... I got bit by a thorn, Mommy.
After lunch we packed up with the goal to find dinosaur tracks listed on our map. Instead we followed a road that quickly turned to dirt, with promises of a three states marker ahead of us. Did a dirt road deter us? Nope. Did it matter that we were hauling the camper. Nope.
So we found the marker and stood on the corner where Oklahoma, New Mexico and Colorado meet.
Then we kept looking for the dinosaur tracks. it wasn't well marked, but we do think we found them. Jack and I explored with Sophie in an old river bed.
As we left Black Mesa, we consulted the map on our phones. Now you have to understand that we were in a really rural area. Our phones had no reception, so Daniel dug out our old school GPS at this point and was able to pull up local maps but even it did not have satellite connection (it worked better for us in rural Mexico 15 years ago than it did in this part of Oklahoma and New Mexico!).
What we should have done was use the map to visually navigate back to one of the closest small towns and follow the roads into Colorado. What we did instead was follow the roads marked on the GPS's map.
As we drove we realized we might be in trouble the road narrowed, becoming a ranch road, with ditches on either side and no place to turn around. This in and of itself might not have been a big deal, BUT we did have a moment of concern when we passed a sign saying: 17 MILES UNPAVED ROAD AHEAD MAY NOT BE PASSABLE DURING INCLEMENT WEATHER.
During this period we only saw one other person (a loan rancher, perhaps) and were were at least 150 miles from any gas stations. Did I mention that we needed gas?
We had a couple of cans of gas on the camper, and we didn't really have an option to turn around with our camper and it hadn't rained the entire trip. Plus, we were in the west, would it really rain? Without a real option, we said a prayer and pressed on.
Then we saw storm clouds ahead.
It has to be said that this was the ONLY RAIN we would encounter on this entire trip. And it was in a potentially dangerous place.
Thankfully Daniel was already in the driver's seat and he went as fast as one can on a dirt road with a camper behind in an effort to outrace the storm headed straight for us.
For 17 miles we drove. And it rained. And we were jostled about. The roads were so bad that we later discovered that the bathroom door handle shook right off the door. And several screws holding things in place also came out.
And just as quickly as we drove through the rain, it stopped and we were back on paved road again. It was an experience we will never forget!
We continued on through the northeast corner of New Mexico and made our way into Colorado. We drove until we reached the Family Base Camp Campground in the San Luis Valley with Mount Blanca in the distance. Mount Blanca is the fourth highest mountain in Colorado and it was stunning.
The campground was a bit expensive, but it was a gorgeous spot with reliable internet –– which Daniel needed to get some work done.
We had our first campfire of the trip and the kids loved roaming around the campground, digging in the dirt and riding their bikes. After a crazy drive, it was the perfect spot to end our day. It was also our first cold night of the trip (by the end we would experience a 100 degree swing from 110 in Moab to the teens in Wyoming on the way home).
The next morning I did a quick grocery stop to replenish our food supplies (we discovered we could stock up for about three days at a time). While I shopped, Daniel and the boys went to the Tractor Supply Co. to get some parts to fix things that had broken while we traversed that gravel and dirt road in New Mexico.
The next stop on this trip is Mesa Verde. I will be posting about our visit there in my next blog post.
Quote from Isaac: It's not a bath house, it's a shower house because they only have showers. He has a point.
The kids were great travelers on this trip. Perhaps because of having a tv and headphones in the car for the first time in their lives! Legos and books were also great entertainment in the car.
Trip Stats
Camping Locations: Pickwick Landing State Park in Tenn., Gore Landing City Park in Okla., Wallydocking in Guymon, OK, Family Base Camp in Alamosa, Colo.
States Covered: TN > GA > AL > MS > TN > MS > TN > AR > OK > NM > CO
Significant Stops: Black Mesa, OK (highest point)
Daily Miles Traveled: 227 miles ⎮ 445 miles ⎮ 403 miles ⎮ 325 miles
TOTAL Miles Traveled: 1,400 miles
Days on the Road: 5
From my Instagram Diary (the day of):
Utah Road Trip Diaries Day 4 cont.: We had our earliest start and headed for Black Mesa in the northwest corner of OK. It’s the highest spot in the state so I didn’t want to miss it. We really loved seeing this area of Oklahoma and would recommend it if you happen to be in this remote area of the country. We learned all about mesas today and what makes this one black. We didn’t have four hours to climb to the top so settled for lunch at the base. Then we drove on to the three corners monument where Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Colorado touch. We also stopped to look at a few dinosaur tracks. When heading on to our next stop, we realized we had no cell service so no gps. I used the map on my phone to navigate us toward Colorado. This meant driving through NM on a road that went from paved to gravel to dirt for a 17 mile stretch. A sign warned us that the road was hazardous during inclement weather. Ahead we could see a storm brewing but pressed on anyway. Today’s adventure could be called the road less traveled. We saw one car on the drive and it was 150 miles between gas stations. It was exciting to say the least. Upon arriving at camp we realized the washboard road had shook more screws out of our rig 😬 Before reaching Folsom, we headed north and were in Colorado. I was surprised at how quickly the landscape changed in this area from prairies to mesas to mountains. It took a us another hour to reach civilization. We are headed toward Mesa Verde and crossing the bottom of CO with the Spanish Mountains on our west. We decided to camp at Alamosa with a beautiful view of Mount Blanca in the San Luis Valley. It’s the fourth highest mountain in CO and amazing that is is our view for the evening. We had an gorgeous sunset and I grilled fish tacos for us. After dinner we enjoyed our first campfire of the trip, complete with s’mores. The stars are spectacular here. We can’t wait to see what is to come.
and
Utah Road Trip Diaries: Day 5 was a travel day that started out low-key for us. We had stayed in an amazing campground in Alamosa with WiFi so that he could do a conference call and do some work related stuff. The night before was cool enough for us to run our heat for the first time in the camper. Thankfully it worked! This morning I savored my coffee and the slowness of starting our day. The kids rode their bikes and dug in the dirt and did kid stuff.
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