This is End Game

Since leaving the Valley of Fire, I have been on the road through to Tennessee.  I have been timing this last leg of my trip to arrive Monday since I wouldn't be able to get the keys to the house on Sunday.

The last few days I have been driving until it is about dark, and finding a place to stay, each day making it further than I planned.  Which is why I am spending the night in Memphis, TN.  I was in four states today (Texas, drove through Oklahoma and Arkansas, landing in Tennessee).

In honor of making it to the Volunteer State, I have shaved the goatee.  Tomorrow, Nashville, hopefully the House, and soon, a haircut.

Only an old ghost town..

When I left Death Valley, I took a slightly longer route out the valley to go through Ryolite, and gold boom and bust town from the early 1900's.

I've been to a few other ghost towns in the past, but they dated much earlier that Ryolite.  The construction in Ryolite isn't wood framed and sided structures like most towns built before 1900.  Most the remaining structures Ryolite are concrete construction, and the missing structures were prefab structures that the inhabitants packed out of town on wagons after the local gold stocks went bust.  The bottle house, however, is made of bottles.

The bank buildings were intact, including the vaults.

There was also an abandoned Union Pacific car in town.

For more, see the full album linked in the sidebar.

A Day Late and Many Dollars Shorter...

I'm on the road this morning, Saturday, instead of Friday because I haven't had time to get the day of prep work done with everything going on.

The plan now is to spend more time in Death Valley and Zion and skip Valley of Fire, and only spend maybe half a day in Petrified Forest, and still splitting the last leg into 2 long days.

Google Maps says my total driving distance for the trip is 2,446 miles (not including local miles). This should come to about 100 Gallons of gas for the main trip and 38 Hours of drive time.

Next stop, Death Valley where the current weather is highs in the 60s and lows in the 30s. Fortunately, staying in Templeton has prepared me a bit for this, with lows in the 20s and 30s for the last several days.