As you may recall, we'd just cancelled our flight home due to the unknowns of Covid-19, but were still in exploration mode as we entered the Valley of Fire State Park in southeastern Nevada. Our trip to the Valley of Fire was somewhat opportunistic to say the least. A year before this trip ever even crossed my mind, I'd seen a photo on Flickr that had caught my eye. Sharp as ever, I completely forgot to save the photo or a link to the photo , but - luckily for me - the photo had been geotagged and I'd saved…
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While camping in a wash less than 12 hours after the national weather service issued a series of storm warnings for the area may seem foolish to any normal person, it actually turned out to be one of our most pleasant nights of the trip. Of course, I was reasonably confident that was to be the case when we setup camp - this wash didn't appear to have had much in the way of water as we'd hiked it the previous evening, and we were several feet from its low point should water have started to flow. The trailhead we'd…
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The rain that had started just as we crawled into bed persisted throughout the night - a consistent patter on the tent, its rhythm never letting up. This was no surprise, really - near enough to town that we had cell service, we'd seen that several flash flood warnings were issued for the area, and we hoped that we'd be able to continue our adventure in the morning. In no rush to get up in the deluge, we lingered in bed an extra hour or so, hoping that the forecast - which was for rain the rest of the day…
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Preface You'll note pretty quickly that this trip took place right near the beginning of what has become a worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. At the time of the trip, there had been approximately 600 cases and 24 deaths across the USA. 18 of those deaths were from the Life Care assisted living community in Kirkland, WA. Schools at all education levels were still open, and while some companies were starting to allow employees to work from home, it was not widespread, and definitely not mandated. There were no travel restrictions - or even really talk of such restrictions on a broad…
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Our location at the Kelso Dunes was the first where I thought there'd be a chance of a nice sunrise, so I'd set my alarm for 6:00am to try and catch the orange on the horizon. It was of course quite chilly at 6:00am, and so I had the bright idea to just take a photo with my phone out the door of the tent, rather than climbing down the ladder to fetch the Canon 80D - that I shoot with - from the truck. Well, the photo came out so poorly - compared to what I'm now used to - that…
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The night air was warm - probably 15°F warmer than it'd been in Eureka Valley - as the stars spun in the clear sky above. It was a great night, tucked away in our quiet, secluded corner of Saline Valley. Once again having gone to bed early, it was no trouble getting up a little before sunrise. I wasn't sure we'd really get anything with cloudless skies and our position relative to the Inyo Mountains and Panamint Ranges. And in the end, there wasn't much except a bit of color in the sky, but even that was extremely pleasant as…
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The wind that had been relentless the day before died down over the next several hours, resulting in the most pleasant night of the trip. Oriented just so, there was no need to get up in the morning to enjoy the sunrise either - something I'm sure I'll forget by the next time we go out. A full day ahead, we didn't linger long under the covers, both of us out of the tent by 6:30am - our long shadows playing across the playa, Steens Mountain towering to our west - so we could get breakfast eaten and the tent…
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I was sure to get up early for our last morning in Utah - our location on the top of a plateau ideal for capturing the sunrise over Bears Ears. As it does, the light started subtly, working it's way to brilliant oranges and pinks above the horizon - one of the best sunrises we'd had all trip. But, that was seriously misleading. Behind me to the south west, a south westerly breeze was pushing clouds on the horizon closer. They were far enough away that I didn't even take notice as I climbed back into my tent to enjoy…
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March 28, 2019. It was a chilly night - at least compared to the last - our tents covered in a layer of frozen dew when I awoke in the morning. A quick glance out the window was enough for me to realize that no spectacular sunrise would be visible from our location, so I pulled out my Kindle and finished reading whatever action-thriller I'd been in the middle of at the time. That didn't take long - there hadn't been much left, so I pulled on a couple layers of clothes and climbed into the truck to finish writing…
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March 27, 2019. Unlike basically every other night where wind and snow were possible in the forecast, this night turned out to be just as pleasant as the last , and when my alarm went off for sunrise, I was well-rested and ready to see what the day had in store. I wasn't disappointed. And, I was lucky. After snapping a few photos around camp, a high cloud cover began to develop, and I took the cue to climb back into bed for a couple more hours of shut-eye. That turned out to be a great thing since - as…
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The night was one of the most pleasant we've spent in the tent - no wind to speak of, which meant that all the windows were down and the nearly full moon illuminated the rocky landscape around us until it set along the western horizon around 3:00am. Knowing that this could be a great place to catch sunrise, I'd set my alarm for 6:30am to make sure that I didn't miss it - so when I woke up just a few minutes before it went off, I decided I might as well get myself going. After all, I could see…
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March 3, 2019. Having gone to bed with the wind howling, it only got worse as the night progressed. Having experienced these extremely strong winds in the CVT a few times now, and knowing that the ladder side of the tent was well-weighed down, I knew that the tent would be OK; my stress level lower than it had been the first couple times we'd been in this situation. With earplugs in, we slept reasonably well through the night, though we were awoken for a few of the more violent gusts. In the morning, I'd tell @mrs.turbodb that a constant…
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We slept well through the night, our location mostly sheltered from the strong winds. What little wind made it to the tent was easily quieted by ear plugs, making for a peaceful night sleep. Most of the night passed uneventfully - a fact we were happy for given the weather report we'd seen the day before. We were right on the edge of a weather system - areas to the west expecting rain all day, areas to the east predicted to be dry. But then, around 5:00am, a pitter-patter on the rain fly - we hadn't escaped the rain fully.…
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Camped in a bit of a depression and surrounded by trees, there was no reason to get up extra early to catch the sunrise - something I took full advantage of as I slept in until 8:26am - I believe my latest of the trip! Still the first out of bed, I wondered around taking in the sights - the creek behind camp, the glassy lake a quarter mile up the road. As I made my way back to our camp, I thought to myself how glad I was that we hadn't camped at the lake. September 1 is opening…
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March 15, 2018. Day 0. As we pulled out of the parking lot in Idaho Falls, we were already late. See, the plan had been to show up at @cbi offroad fab when they opened at 8:00am, and have the new bumper install done by 10:00am so we'd have our choice of routes down to Hanksville, UT where we were meeting Ben @m3bassman and Zane @Speedytech7 for a three-day adventure into The Maze District in Canyonlands National Park. My hope was that we'd choose the scenic route, down 191 through Wyoming to get to our meet-up and first nights camp…
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Derp would never see the sand dunes, even though it turned out we were camped at the base of one nearly 200-feet high. Having set three sequential alarms "just in case," when his first alarm went off at 4:00am, he bucked his usual trend and got up and out of camp relatively quickly. It was still dark, but we could hear him reving along the muddy roads for a good 20-30 minutes, so we were pretty sure he made it out alright. Back to sleep for a few hours, when I woke again at 7:00am, it was cold. 24-degrees cold.…
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