Re: [a/s] US 50 - First Of Many Route Questions

[Tom Jacobs <tdj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

By all means ... go for it.

I drove this section of highway in September of 1998. It was a nice 
drive. And with some luck I will drive this section again. One of my 
plans for the future is to drive US50 coast to coast. (Ocean City, MD 
to San Fransisco, CA.)

I had a buddy along to help with the driving. Well er .. ah ... My 
buddy had me along to help with the driving. We were driving his 
truck and pulling his Airstream. We had traveled west on I80. And we 
both though it might be nice to travel east on some other (any other) 
road.

I guess I should note that we were heading east from Reno not Carson 
City. We took I80 east to US50 alternate. Then joined US50 someplace 
west of Falion. We followed US50 until I15. We then took I15 up to 
Salt Lake City.

I don't thing you will have any problems pulling a 31' unit on US50. 
I only remember one place where I had to drop to third gear going up 
the hill. And that section of the road was rather twisted. So you 
couldn't go much faster then 45mph there anyway. Other parts of the 
road are straight and level. And you will be able to go just as fast 
as you could go on the interstate. (Not saying that you should; just 
that you could.)

If you like to look at geology let me give you a warning. When you 
come to the earthquake fault road, DO NOT take your trailer down this 
road. Drop the rig at the highway. Take only the tow vehicle down to 
the fault if you want to look at the rocks. The fault site is only 7 
or 8 miles off of US50. But you won't find a good place to turn the 
rig around for more than 30 miles. The next cross road is something 
like 150 miles acording to the maps we had with us at the time. 
Getting turned around was, let us say, a challenge. And you are going 
to have another 6 feet (maybe more) of rig to maneuver. Other than 
that it is a good road. You will not have any trouble passing over 
the road. You just won't be able to turn a long rig around.

If you can stand to spend a night in THE BOONIES then I recomend that 
you plan to spend a night at a site called Sand Mountain. This is a 
BLM (Bureau of Land Management) site about a mile off the highway. If 
I remember correctly it is about 30 or so miles east of Salt Wells.

This is a nice and quite location. Or at least it was when we were 
there. There was only one other person around. And he left shortly 
after sunset. It gets dark at night so the stars shine very brightly. 
I highly recommend that you stop here and climb to the top of the 
sand pile to watch the sunset. The sunset was just magnificent. (My 
guess is that watching the sunrise would be just a magnificent. But I 
didn't get up in time to see the sunrise. We didn't set an alarm 
clock!

There is an old Pony Express station located between the Sand 
Mountain and US50. You might want to plan for an hour to an hour and 
a half to walk the grounds of the old station. There is nothing left 
but the foundations of the buildings. And some signs to explain the 
site.

At 17:24 -0700 7/23/00, Carol Beebe wrote:
>Hwy 50 is beautiful, but remember, it is known as "the lonliest road in
>America"  ... so be sure you are prepared for lack of infrastructure.

She is absolutely correct.

While we were driving this section of highway we enforced on 
ourselves a half tank rule. When ever we got down to half a tank of 
fuel we stopped and filled up. Ok one time when we were passing 
thorough a small town along the road we had just over a half a tank 
of fuel.

We still stopped and filled up.

About 45 miles after we crossed into Utah we came upon an 18 wheel 
trucks stopped in the middle of nowhere. We stopped to see if we 
could help. (We knew he had a problem.) He had a broken fuel line. We 
offered him some tubing that we had with us. The driver was afraid 
that the tubing we had was not strong enough to take the pressure. 
But he installed it anyway. He got the truck started and we told him 
we would follow him back to civilation. But he stop after about a 
mile. He was right; the tubing we had was not able to hold the 
pressure.

So before we left him there, we told him we would drive on the to 
next town and  arange for someone to come back to help him. But we 
pointed out that the next town was at least an hour away. (And that 
maybe help would have to travel even further to get back to him.) We 
asked him if he needed water but he said that he  had that covered.

We stopped at the next town and filled up with gas. There was a phone 
and we called the 911 dispatcher to report the disabled vehicle. I 
will say that the dispatcher was very professional. (I figure that 
this was not the first time that this has happened.) The dispatcher 
said that he would send help.

We then continued on our way.

Tom
1975 Tradewind