Trip 04, Day 06 (Day 33):
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 2007: ALIEN LANDSCAPE
We awoke to a chillier morning than we expected since the temperature was projected to reach 85 today. The cloudless sky gave credence to the prediction. That is why we had planned a little earlier start, so we got up at 6:30 a.m., ate breakfast, and got to the start point at the rest area by 8:00 a.m.
Starting point: 43.53245 N, 119.31988 W – elevation 4555 feet
Ending point: 43.51145 N, 119.13669 W – elevation 4227 feet
Joe again took off running to get in another 3 miles toward his goal for the year. I began walking west along Highway 20 from the rest area just after 8 a.m. Already it was warm enough that after only a mile and a half, I peeled off my long-sleeved tee-shirt and was comfortable in my “Chicago White Sox World Series Champions” tee.
The highway soon left the immediate farming area and entered another burn area through some low hills. Most of the ground-level brush had been completely consumed, and sagebrush bushes stood out starkly as black branches with no foliage. Almost no new growth had yet appeared.
At about 2 miles, I veered left off the highway onto a stretch of old, abandoned pavement that we had spotted while driving past this area every day on the trip. The blacktop was riddled with large cracks and was mostly overgrown by weeds and even some large sagebrush clumps. These, however, were now the blackened skeletons previously described because of some recent fire. This track curved along the hillside further and further from the highway, taking me through what Joe aptly described as being “...like the last survivor on earth about 50 years after a nuclear holocaust.” I had to climb over two metal gates with “Keep Off” signs posted. Near the end of this 2-mile detour, Joe was sitting in the lawn chair waiting comfortably, but unhappy with me for forgetting to bring the book along so he could read some more. As we had the day before, we walked together for the remainder of the day’s trek.
The rest of the walk alternated between green pastures and sagebrush. We found another half-mile-long stretch of old highway paralleling Route 20, and we took that also, ending near the parked car.
Walk rating: 7.5
Money found: Day: $.41 Trip: $0.69 Project: $13.15
Distance: Day: 9.7 miles Trip: 59.1 miles Project: 310.5 miles
Significance: Halfway point of the trip.
