Colorado
Wedding Road Trip
A
Trip Through the Southwest
20180411-0601
Last Update:
20180521
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Montezuma's Castle, Cottonwood, AZ
Sony A7RM3:
1/250 sec, ISO 100, 70mm at f/5.6
All photos copyright, Bill Caid 2018. All rights reserved.
The
Trip
My niece's
daughter, Rachel,
announced her
wedding which
was to be held in Leadville, CO on April 28th.
After evaluating our alternatives for getting there,
we concluded that the best option was to take Thor, our
Mercedes 1017A camper. Having just gotten
back from three weeks in Argentina, we were still
a bit disoriented, but loaded our stuff into
the camper and headed out. Our
plan was to go from San
Diego, CA to Leadville, CO
via central Arizona,
northwestern New Mexico
and then transit
into Colorado
at Four Corners.
From there,
we will visit our
close friends
Brad and Laura in
Durango and then
hop over several 11,000
foot
passes to get
to Leadville.
Tracking Our
Location Via The SPOT
Some years ago, after
a scary
mechanical failure in the canyons and mesas of southern Utah,
we decided that we need a better way to advertise our position
and call for assistance if needed. Kathleen found out
about the SPOT which is a GPS locator that transmits your
coordinates via satellite so that others can see your
location. The location is plotted on Google maps and a
"bread crumb" feature is available for an additional
fee. We have the enhanced service, so you can see our
historical path back 50 updates or so. See our current
location plotted on Google Maps in Real-Time via SPOT
satellite geo-locator device. This page is
"book-markable" and is updated approximately every 15 minutes,
but may miss updates due to inability of our transmitter to
reach the satellite. The communication is "open loop" so
the device never knows if it's messages are actually going
anywhere, it just keeps trying until the next update is
available. If we are in a congested urban area with high
buildings (like Manhattan) or in deep canyons, the position
may not update. We try to send an "OK" message once a
day just to let everyone know that we are, in fact, OK.
Given that this is a remote area and has many obstacles (like
mountains), it is not clear how well this capability will
perform.
Connecting and
Contacting Us While on the Trip
Because of internet
connectivity issues on a previous trip, we purchased a MiFi
cell phone modem that allows us to connect nearly anywhere
there is at least 3G service via cell phone (which is most of
the cell phone service area available today). But, as we
all know, cell phones are useful many places, but not
everywhere has coverage, particularly in the remote areas of
the country and outlying territories. Our phones and the
modem are enabled daily so you may contact us, although it may
take a few days for us to respond. But, we will
respond. My email, spelled out, is "bcaid at yahoo dot
com".
Trip
Details
The link
table below contains links to the photos and dialog for each
of the days of the expedition. This table will be
updated as the trip progresses. For this trip, the bulk
of the photos were shot with my Sony A7RM3 with either a fully
manual 35mm Voightlander, Sony 24-70 f/2.8, or Sony 16-35mm
f/2.8 lens.
Links
to Daily Adventures
Part |
Dates |
Adventure Locations
|
1
|
20180411-14
|
San Diego to Cottonwood, AZ
|
2
|
20180415
|
Verde Canyon
Railroad, Cottonwood, AZ
|
3
|
20180416-18
|
Cottonwood, AZ
to Cortez, NM
|
4
|
20180419-23
|
Durango, CO and
Mesa Verde, CO
|
5
|
20180424
|
Hovenweep Ruin
|
6
|
20180428
|
Jimmy and
Rachael's Leadville, CO Wedding
|
7
|
20180429-0506
|
Leadville, CO to
Canyon City, CO
|
8
|
20180507
|
Royal Gorge
Railroad Excursion
|
9
|
20180508-11
|
Canyon City, CO
to Dead Horse Point, UT
|
10
|
20180512
|
Canyonlands
and Arches National Parks
|
11
|
20180513-14
|
Green River,
UT to Escalante, UT
|
12
|
20180515
|
Bryce Canyon
National Park, UT
|
13
|
20180516-17
|
Zion National
Park, UT to Flagstaff, AZ
|
14
|
20180518-20
|
Overland Expo,
Flagstaff, AZ
|
Conclusions and
Advice to Travelers
The American
southwest is a big, big place. In addition to plenty of
miles between destinations, the weather can be very cold in
the winter and really hot in the summer. Our trip was on
the cusp of summer and the weather oscillated between cold,
windy and hot. If you travel in the area, you should be
prepared for extremes in the weather, particularly if you are
traveling to high altitude. Leadville, CO is at 10,100
feet and it can be quite cold at night, even in high summer.
Top
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Photos and Text Copyright Bill Caid 2018, all rights
reserved.
For your enjoyment only, not for commercial use.