DennyG

Aha! I actually remember seeing that and I even have a picture -- sort of. It's an over the shoulder drive-by here. I'm rather embarrassed by how few pictures I have of the Nevada portion of my recent Dugway drive. This is partly because of the road being in worse shape and requiring more attention than in Utah and partly because I was frankly getting a bit tired of driving dirt roads. Maybe not so much tired of them as tired by them. Of course my embarrassment is multiplied by Dale's splendid reporting of things that I just whizzed (relatively speaking) by. The stop sign I missed because I whizzed by the back side of it. I actually started down the road leading to it -- it starts at the blind curve indicated by the bullet riddled sign here -- but determined that was not the original LH and returned to follow the left hand path. It soon turns north (right) to pass the house and stop sign. DeLorme identifies this as Bews Ranch and the LH Driving CD adds a note that it is the Spring Valley Pony Express Station just south of the house. KtSotR: I believe the parked white van I mentioned in another thread was just before the blind curve. Dale: Thanks for posting this and allowing me to regain a modicum of respect after missing all that other stuff. Everyone: Take heed of the perforated signs. Wearing yellow and standing still for more than a minute could get you shot out here. And it doesn't have to be particularly bright yellow.

Sorry to hear of your health issues but hope that the chemo takes its toll on the disease as well. I also hope you didn't hurt the parrot too much. Great story.

Egads! The tracks show that I drove right by this without seeing it. I think that by that point, I was looking at the gas gauge as much as the roadside. Wonderful photos and reporting. I've enjoyed it all and have a nice "to see" list for my next pass. Thanks.

I believe that as a kid I saw those flat sided stones in pavement and thought that either years of traffic had worn them flat or that someone had ground them or chiseled them after the concrete had set. But I now imagine that running a roller over fresh pavement will align flat surfaces that way. Of course, I have nothing to substantiate that any more than my earlier vision of road workers going over the entire surface with hammers and chisels. Dating roads with crushed vs. whole and small vs. large rocks seems extremely reasonable.

Many of the coordinates are given as absolute values without a sign or hemisphere designation. In the most recent post, Dale includes the 'N' and 'W'. A positive or unsigned latitude number indicates the northern hemisphere so that works out just fine but you need the 'W' or a minus sign to get out of China and into the U.S. of A. or you could just go ahead and begin work on Greetings from the Karakoram Highway.

1914? Pshaw! When we Ohioans want to drive on old concrete we head about thirty miles north of the National Road to Bellefontaine where the pavement was ready and waiting before the first Model T came along. But those are good pictures -- and some very nice reporting -- of some of our "middle aged" pavement.

Your mention of only the gallery photos in connection with Foster Braun gives me an opening to wonder if you are aware that these photos are posted to augment Foster's blog entries which are, in turn, introductions and links to his American Road Trip Talk podcasts. Since resuming the podcasts several months ago, Foster has posted a new one more or less weekly and announced it with a blog entry. Most or all have included photos. The podcasts, without photos, are also available through iTunes.

Absolutely wonderful! I, of course, drove right by that section last month and as soon as I began to understand approximately where you were I wanted to blame it on Garmin. But this miss was clearly and completely my doing. The section you have described so well is marked as 1913 LH on the LHA Driving CD but the path I plotted bypassed it. It might have just been my lack of tweaking in that area but I think it more likely that the dashed line on the map scared me off. And even if it hadn't, the sight of that tall-grass two-track might have. Thanks so much for sharing another segment that I missed last month and which awaits my next visit. The great pictures and well done description are much appreciated. A couple of minor typos are easily dealt with but to save others a bit of head scratching I'll point out that both times a longitude of 144 is mentioned, 114 is actually correct.

Now that looks familiar. I remember standing at Canyon Station for quite awhile trying to imagine getting ready to head out on that winding road (which wasn't even really a road then) at the helm of an Overland coach. When I try stuff like that, I have mixed success with the physical part and know that I haven't a clue as to the mental sensation of almost complete isolation. Of course, any empathy I'd managed to create evaporated quickly as I drove off in my semi-sealed air-conditioned rubber-tired vehicle with nary a horse's rump in sight.

That's another place I "missed by that much" last month. I was intentionally following the original alignment west but could still have visited Gold Hill with a fairly short side trip. Perhaps if I had realized (or remembered) that there were some interesting buildings there I would have made that side trip. But your photos are the next best thing and I've promised myself that I'll never again get that close to Gold Hill without visiting. It looks like the Cutoff might be drivable/ridable up to the Dugway gate. Did you do that?

I just discovered that the Lincoln Highway Driving CD has a pointer for the remnants of the original concrete mount for the GM plaque. 39 22.8888 -115 54.5737 if you feel like taking a look someday.

I didn't recall much at all about that thread although I was a VERY MINOR participant. At that time (Aug 2008) I had never even been in the area. I just went back and reread it and now that I've at least driven US 50 through there it makes complete sense and will probably stick with me a bit better. The topic of interest is HERE.

After I broke out the Gregory Franzwa The Lincoln Highway Nevada book to feed another thread, I decided to see if he had anything to say about Cape Horn. He does mention it but doesn't say a lot. He describes the road bending "...around low hills referred to as 'Cape Horn'" and, although I may be reading too much into this, I'm thinking the name may come from a vague (and very dry) resemblance to that better known Cape Horn that waterborne travelers passed on the way west. Franzwa's maps show two Overland Stage routes and two stations. One is almost precisely where you found the pile of rocks. That one he dates as 1862-64 with the route that passes it dated 1860-1863. An 1864-1868 route is shown heading more directly west and paralleling US 50 to the north. A station with the same dates is shown at something around 39 23.530 -116 52.000. If Franzwa's dates are correct, then neither of these stations would have existed when Burton passed through in 1860.

Sorry that I'll miss your debut as event coordinator but I have getting there while the 100 Years of Chevy exhibit is still in place as a goal.

I've "found" you but I've got no story to add other than noting that Franzwa verifies that there are sections of 1921 Lincoln Highway beside US 50 both north and south of you. The older (1913/1918) route turns west about 2 1/2 miles south of you and goes through Ruth. I guess it's been more or less obliterated west of Ruth by mining operations. Apparently that group of buildings has been in use during the era of satellite communications. At least I think that the remnants of a big dish to the right.

According to Gregory Franzwa, that is the only survivor of fourteen placed in 1928 around the same time the Boy Scouts were placing the concrete posts. It is from the White Pine County line southeast of town. He includes a photo of the plaque, in its original location, on a base similar to, but clearly not the same, as the one at the courthouse. I know the Owl Cafe had made an appearance on my trip planning radar but for some unknown reason I ate at DJ's when I was in Eureka last month. I've only been to Eureka twice and on both occasions I stopped at the Keyhole Bar, almost directly across from the courthouse and home to the singing deer. Guess I've just got a soft spot for musical ungulates.

That makes a lot more sense. My guess at placing Simpson Park Station used mileage given by Burton as straight line which it clearly isn't. Great bird pictures. I've heard that one of the biggest causes of death for Osprey is fish. The bird misjudges the size of a fish but its barbed talons won't let it drop the too heavy load and it flounders and drowns. Wonderful picture of the Osprey and its dinner.

Zanesville is a big pottery area. The National Road museum east of town is really a National Road/Zane Grey/Zanesville Pottery museum. A year or two ago they had painted vases around town like Cincinnati had flying pigs, Chicago had cows, and Amarillo had horses. Many were sold to benefit local charities but not all. I'm told that the "odd display" in your last picture is the leftovers. I'm guessing that the prices are becoming pretty reasonable in case you saw one you liked.

Pat, is one of those claimed campsites yours?

Wonderful stuff! I was on some of the Pony Express route myself a couple of weeks ago but nothing like that. Dave: Any luck with Burton? I took a look but it seems he mentions no station between Simpson Park (which I'm guessing is somewhere around Eureka) and Reese River Valley (which is a bit west of Austin). Since that's a distance of 50 miles or more I'm thinking there must have been another station but I didn't see a mention of it.

Dave, I'm glad you were able to work around my errors. That's a skill that will serve you well if you spend much time at all on my website. Yes, Tinkertown is most impressive on so many levels. The posted photos are only a fraction of what I took and those are only a fraction of what I saw and I know I saw only a fraction of what is there. Details and surprises abound. I see I have some real catching up to do here so I'll keep at it. I'm no longer "Going To The Conference" but have been and returned. The complete tale, which involves US 36, LH, PCH, and US 66) is here.

Dale, I was in Austin on the 19th and I bet you were somewhere nearby. I didn't have a 'burger at the International (I'd just had lunch up the road at DJ's) but I did have a beer and learned about Genghis Khan.

Jim, you have one Ohio resident's clearance to apply that weedwhacker to our overgrowth anytime you'd like. Regarding the widely spaced bricks, there is at least one documented instance of the Lincoln Highway near Canton, Ohio, being widened by two feet by pulling the bricks apart and adding sand. I don't know that that was the case here but it seems possible.