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Post date: Oct 5, 2016 10:37:58 PM
This trip was the reverse of my travels from Taos to California. At one time I fantasized that I could make it in only two days, but reality set in quickly. So I relaxed a bit and stopped frequently to take photos of abandoned buildings along the way. Rather than driving up the Lee Vining grade I drove it downward. At the top was a nearly mile-long line of cars waiting to enter Yosemite park. There was no specific holdup, the ranger could take entry fees only so rapidly.
Coaldale Junction once apparently had a motel, restaurant, and gas station with mechanic. The restaurant must have burned (there is only a foundation) but the other structures remain. Recently someone made this a graffiti art project, and a very nice one.At the top of a pass was another collection of abandoned buildings. The restaurant walls stand, but inside are charred remains. The motel buildings have been vandalized somewhat.
Most of the abandoned buildings, however, are farm or ranch structures — houses and barns — that were probably left when technology passed them. The auto allowed ranchers to commute to their herd rather than keeping a series of cabins. Hay baling changed, so barns with hay lofts were obsolete. Mobile homes replaced drafty log or plank cabins.Moab has stretched out along US 191 and grown so busy that it is a significant slow point on the trip. Google routed me on a back street around most of Cortez, Colorado, and I did not miss that traffic. By the time I got there I realized that I would not last driving until 9 pm (15 hours), so chose to sleep in Durango.
On my drive through the Trusas Mountains (northern New Mexico, between Tres Piedras and Tierra Amarilla) I passed three 1920's Rolls Royce cars.
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