The Roads East...

We had such a nice drive out to Illinois...took Rt. 50 across Nevada and Utah-the Lonliest Road in America! We started from Modesto's elevation of 80 feet above sea level and crossed Carson Pass at 9,640 and back "down" into Carson City to begin our trek across Nevada at a mere 4,697. Route 50 is 2 lane, but very little traffic (drove 70-75+mph most all of the time)...and lots of scenery like this as we made at least a dozen ups and downs over passes through the hilly landscape.

We stayed just outside of Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada the first night and spent the next morning driving up into the mountains and enjoying the views. My "aha" moment came in the Visitor's Center where there is a giant relief map that shows this huge mountainous basin that is Nevada, most of Utah, some of Oregon and a bit of Idaho and California. I had never put all that together as a unit before...which geologically has to do with watersheds. Really interesting. (look it up:  Endorheic Basins) This is a panoramic view coming down the road from the Wheeler's Peak (13,159) overlook at about 8,500 ft.

 Driving through Utah, the scenery really started to change...

then we merged into I-70 and headed into Colorado, where we spent the night in a very nice little Mom & Pop type motel--my first experience of using my smart phone to locate housing and how to get there! The next day, July 4th, we drove along the Colorado River as we headed toward Leadville to spend the afternoon and night with my Myers cousin, Linda, and her husband, George.

Below are the mountains that came into focus as we left I-70 to go south to Leadville, CO, elevation 10,152 ft.-highest incorporated city in lower 48, I believe. Had to go over Tennessee Pass (elevation 10,424ft) to get there! We had several dozen jars of fruit-mostly apricots, but some pears and peaches and jam, too. In my head I know the science of vacuum sealing that the canning process is, but I put rings on all the jars just the same before I left home. : )  Somewhere in the up and down of the Tennessee Mnt. pass, we heard the distinctive ping that canning folks everywhere would recognize, except that it was the unsealing, rather than the sealing, of a jar. But only one.

We had a delightful afternoon visit with family, a grilled dinner and a great view of the Leadville's fireworks! They were pretty spectacular and seemed to go on for a really long time.

Early the next morning we headed off for our longest day on the road (and our highest pass crossing of the trip-Fremont Pass 11,319 ft.-no pinging, which was a great relief). After going downhill into Denver, we descended onto the Great Plains, ranging from around 3,000 ft. elevation in the west to under 1,000 ft. at Kansas City on the eastern side. We were just at the tail end of wheat harvest and most of Kansas looked a lot like this:

We spent the night in Missouri and, once again, the landscape changed as we neared our destination of Hutsonville, IL-elevation 436 ft. Jeshua says they live in the middle of cornfields and it is certainly true--and soybeans.

So happy to see everyone--and quickly jumped out of our "tourist/traveling" roles and back into our best fitting Grandma and Grandpa ones! Abby-3 3/4 yrs;  Caleb-1 1/2 yrs.