Country Roads, Take Me Home

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10 Responses

  1. Michael Cain says:

    A couple of weeks ago we drove from Denver to Omaha for my mother’s belated funeral. T-Mobile, from whom we buy service, now claims to be the second largest cellular carrier in the US. It was disturbing to find that in North Platte, NE halfway between the two cities and right on I-80, our phones told us we had 911-service only. No normal voice, no text, no data.

    Once we were home I pulled up T-Mobile’s coverage map. Along I-80, one of the most heavily used freight roadways in the country, there’s no T-Mobile service across most of Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming.Report

    • Sam Wilson in reply to Michael Cain says:

      My wife discovered (before she fell prey to her the disturbing delusions that have yet to cease) that by pulling up a route, then putting the device on Airplane Mode, you can leave it there non-stop without using any data.

      This won’t help with the inability to send or receive calls, but at least it solves one issue.Report

  2. Damon says:

    Capital Reef is indeed wonderful…I found all of the Escalate plateau wonderful too.

    We spent time in the North Rim, Bryce, Zion, and Arches. Wonderful 2 week trip.Report

    • Sam Wilson in reply to Damon says:

      I used to work at the South Rim. One of the trips I have planned with my daughter is a hike down to Phantom Ranch for a few days overnight. She’ll need to be a little older for that. Once you get into the lower canyon, it gets grueling.Report

  3. Burt Likko says:

    A portion of your trek, southbound from Crater Lake through Reno, roughly tracks a route that I took northbound just under two years ago when I moved to Portland from Southern California.

    Describing a place like Canby, California as “lonely” is painting with the brush of understatement. I’d add that especially if the area has recovered from the fires whose charry evidence I saw across the hills, it ignores the grand, Skyrim-like beauty of the forests, mountains, meadows, and looming volcanoes. It’s not a land without people, but a land with very few of them, and it’s hard to imagine other than that most of them probably like it that way.Report

    • Sam Wilson in reply to Burt Likko says:

      We got to see a controlled burn not far from there. I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t entirely relevant to my complaint, but they had three volunteer helicopters out dropping buckets around the area, including one double-bladed machine that we got a really nice snapshot of.

      You’re right, though. Lovely country. Pity it has to be in California.Report

  4. Aunt Lori says:

    This is the stuff nightmares are made of…. absolutely frightening! I’m sensing you need to be the writer for a sci-fi movie in the future!Report

  5. Aunt D. says:

    Maybe you shouldn’t have visited Area 51!Report

  6. Fish says:

    Fantastic stuff! I note that you wisely omitted any mention of I-70 across Kansas. Some horrors are best forgotten…Report