Back on the Road

I finally got my car back last Tuesday, 11/3/09, only 6.5 weeks after taking it to the shop. I loaded up on Wednesday morning headed towards the west coast. On the way out of Colorado, I stopped by Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, which was just off of the highway that I was on. I spent around an hour and a half there, driving around to the various overlooks, but not taking the time to do any real hiking.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Once finished there, I got back on the road and made it to Salt Lake City where I stopped for an oil change, per the engine manufacturers recommendations. While there, the mechanics found a defect in one of my front tires and warned me not to go any further with it in that condition. They referred me to a tire shop where I got a new set of front tires and was back to driving. After being without a car for so long, I was actually slightly enjoying being back behind the wheel, and considered driving straight through to Tahoe, although I would only have a couple of hours before sunrise by the time I got there. I pulled over at a coffee shop in Elko, NV to weigh my options. Fortunately they had an exterior outlet and free wifi that I could use since they had long since closed. I spotted a plot of BLM land near Winnemucca and set my sights there for the night. This turned out to be a great spot, since the interstate exited off directly onto the dirt road where I was planning to camp, meaning I never got more than five minutes away from the freeway. The next morning, I packed up camp and was on schedule to be at Tahoe by mid morning.