Moki Dugway

-

After driving through the Valley of the Gods, I then had to drive the Moki Dugway - I was headed to Natural Bridges National Monument and the map indicated that the Dugway was the only way to get there. I didn't really know about the road and didn't pay attention to the legend on the map that states: "Moki Dugway is gravel with 10% grades and switchbacks 2.2 miles." 

Little did I know what was in store for me! When I saw the sign that the pavement ends in 500 feet and that the speed limit was 5 MPH, I freaked out just a bit, but I really had no choice but to go slow speed ahead. During the drive I did notice that there were no guardrails at all from the bottom to the top! Believe me, I drove real slow to the top and had the car in first, second, or third gear the whole way up. Maybe two or three cars passed me coming down from the top. It was a true white knuckle ride and I breathed a sigh of relief when I got to the top and saw real pavement. 

For those of you interested in such stuff, this is a description from DangerousRoads.org: "The Dugway, located on Utah Route 261 just north of Mexican Hat, Utah is a staggering, graded dirt switchback road carved into the face of the cliff edge of Cedar Mesa. It consists of three miles of steep, unpaved, but well graded switchbacks (11% grade), which wind 1,200 feet from the valley floor near Valley of the Gods to Cedar Mesa."


This photo I grabbed off the internet!

View from halfway up to the top!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, Hannibal, Missouri

-
Image
After arriving in Hannibal, the boyhood home of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, I parked the car and ventured into the Mark Twain Museum Gallery which I had conveniently parked in front of (though I had no idea where the museum was when I parked). I paid the $12 admission fee, and was treated to exhibits on Mark Twain's main works of literature, and other miscellany about his life, his works, and his influences.  After touring the gallery, I headed over to the other parts of the Museum , including his boyhood home, Becky Thatcher's house, the Huckleberry Finn House, an interpretive center, the J.M. Clemens Justice of the Peace Office, and Grant's Drug Store.  All in all, a true bargain at $12 if ever there was one! Before leaving, I asked a stranger to take a photo of me in front of Tom Sawyer's fence. She happily obliged.
Read more

Flight 93 National Memorial

-
Image
After the flawed exit to see Wilbur Wright's birthplace, I was determined to redeem the day with a visit to an attraction which was worthy of a road trip detour. In 2013, on the last stop on the way home from the Grand Canyon, Clare and Conor and I visited the Flight 93 National Memorial. That was only two years after its creation, and at the time there was only a wall of names and a parking lot. There was no visitor center and no other amenities. So I decided to fit in a visit on the way home as I knew that there were now more features to the Memorial.  The Memorial is located in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about a 15-minute detour from the Somerset turnpike exit. Fast forward some eight years later, the Memorial is now full fledged, with a Visitor Center, a Memorial Plaza, including the original white marble wall with the names of the passengers and crew, a Memorial Grove of trees, and a giant tower with 40 wind chimes called the Tower of Voices.  The Memorial is very solemn ...
Read more

Breakfast at Kumback Lunch

-
Image
The hotel offered only a cold breakfast, so on the recommendation of the lady at the hotel, I headed to downtown Perry, Oklahoma, for a full breakfast at Kumback Lunch, a cafe with the same name and location since 1926, and billed as the oldest cafe in Oklahoma. The 1930's gangster Pretty Boy Floyd apparently ate at Kumback, and his photo hangs on the wall. As did Charlie Hanger, the state trooper who arrested Timothy McVeigh in 1995, after the Oklahoma City bombing.  When I finished breakfast, I took a stroll around the town of Perry and came across another Carnegie library and a mural of the state of Oklahoma which was situated on a wall next to the Perry Wrestling Monument Park , which honors a history of extraordinary high school wrestling champions at the local Perry high school. It's an homage to small town America for sure. Carnegie library in Perry, Oklahoma Mural at Perry Wrestling Monument Park
Read more