Almost Didn't Make It Back, Part 2

Here is the second half of our epic overland trip that we almost didn't make it back from:

Day Eleven: Pagosa Springs, CO
We left Kansas to start making our way back home, taking our time and seeing as many new places as possible. We had read so much about the sheer beauty of the San Juan National Forest, so we had to make sure to spend some time there. After a full day driving from Kansas into Colorado, we got into Pagosa Springs, CO in the late afternoon. We found a spot in the woods on BLM land and set up camp. We had followed a heavy rainstorm in, so it had thankfully passed by the time we got to set up camp. We made some Curry Noodle dish that was great, and really simple to make. That night, we had the most spectacular lightning storm I had ever seen in the middle of the night, with loud, cracking thunder. It was amazing. I spent half the night awake watching it from the comfort of our RTT, just taking it all in, in awe of the beauty and power. Somehow, thankfully, the kids slept through it all, as it would have been interesting to keep them calm most likely.

Day Eleven: Durango / Silverton / Ouray, CO
Now we had stopped through Durango on a previous trip, and we really liked the feel of the town. We stopped there again to walk around some of the shops, and go to the train museum for our son, and got lunch at this tiny Thai restaurant, where they had the best Massaman Curry I have ever had. I still remember how good it was. From there, we drove up further into Silverton. This was our first time into Silverton, and it is a very beautiful drive and a neat little town to visit and is full of history. It was fun to see this famous mining town, and we could see why it is such a popular tourist attraction. From Silverton, we drove up further to Ouray. The copper mine along the highway looked surreal, and you could see the mountains stained from the minerals in the ground, it was pretty neat to see. We stretched our legs in Ouray and wanted to talk to some locals about a good place to camp away from it all. We spoke to a gentleman in one of the outdoor outfitting stores, and he recommended finding a place off of the famous Alpine Loop Trail, so we headed back to the trailhead to go find a good spot.

This is why I love having a good, capable, 4x4 Expo rig. We found this little spot in the woods, near a beautiful stream, with a view of a meadow leading up to this magnificent mountain. Pictures don’t do it justice. It was my favorite camp spot we found on the trip. The highlight of this camp spot were the deer that came to hang out with us. There were three does that hung around our camp for most of the evening. I was shocked how comfortable they were around us, I think the closest they ever got was about 10 yards away, which was much closer than I would have ever thought. That was our coldest night on the trip, as we were at about 10,000 ft, but we were comfortable in a light jacket. I would imagine its quite a bit colder up there during other times year, but just as beautiful. It really was breathtaking.

Day Twelve: Ophir Pass / Telluride, CO
We packed up camp in the morning to start heading out in the direction of Utah. We wanted to stop into Telluride. Being that we were in a built Land Cruiser, I wanted to get there the fun and scenic way: off-road. Originally, I wanted to take Imogene Pass up and over to Telluride (well, actually, I wanted to take Black Bear, but I knew I wouldn’t get that one approved), but when my wife read the trail report on Imogene, she started getting a little nervous. We compromised on something a little more mellow and we went up and over Ophir Pass. The drive up to the pass was fairly uneventful, but the drive back down was better than expected from a scenic standpoint. Although I would have preferred a little more of a wheeling challenge on Imogene, but I was glad we did Ophir, as it was very beautiful. Plus, now we have an excuse to go back in the future. I could have easy spent a week in the area, it is spectacular there. We had lunch in Telluride and walked around for a while, as we were about to make the drive to Moab, UT.

Day Twelve:  Moab, UT
As we dropped out of the San Juan Mountains, and towards Moab, it was interesting to see the drastic changes in landscape. The Moab area has always been one of our favorites and we have stopped into Arches NP several times on previous trips to visit family in Colorado. We stopped into Arches once again as we arrived into Moab, but we didn’t stay long this time. Everyone was tired, and thunderstorms were rolling in, so we quickly setup camp in one of the primitive campgrounds along the Colorado River outside of Arches. We got rained on pretty good that night, and then the humidity after the rain cleared made it a tough night’s sleep.

Day Thirteen:  Canyonlands, UT
Another one of our must see destinations was Canyonlands NP, as we had never done this before. I already want to go back. Canyonlands was amazing. We started off in the Island of the Sky district, since that seemed to be the most popular and we figured that would be a great overview of the park, and we could go explore from there. We saw Upheaval Dome, and several of the overlooks. It is simply breathtaking. Beautiful; scenic; just amazing to look at and think about the scope and size and scale of these canyons; and just what it took to form these. Everyone was starting to get exhausted at this point after being on the go for so long. I had wanted to go over the Needles District and spend another day there, but everyone had hit the wall, so we said we would make a future trip to Canyonlands and spend a week or so just checking everything out at the pace where we could really enjoy it.

We decided to drive out of Canyonlands via Shafer Trail. If anyone visits the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands, this is a must do. This was one of the most scenic drives I have ever done. We ran it from top down, and I thought that was the way to do it in order to enjoy the scenic drive. Basically, you get to drive from the top of the Island in the Sky, and wind down the canyon, with part of it overlooking the Colorado River as it snakes through the bottom of the canyon, all while taking in these beautiful rock formations. It was truly specatular, definitely a highlight of the trip, a great way to close out Canyonlands for us. The kids were so exhausted that they slept through the whole trail (they did the same in Titus Canyon in Death Valley NP on our previous trip). We started heading back in the direction of home and got to Green River, UT to make camp for the night.

Day Fourteen: Las Vegas, NV
We weren’t going to make it all the way home from the Moab area in one day, nor did we want to do that much driving at this point, so we figured we would make it to Las Vegas, get cleaned up, and let the kids play in the pool and relax after a great trip before heading home to San Diego the next morning.

We were 90 miles north of Vegas when the tire blew……

I was driving southbound on the I-15 towards Vegas, doing about 70 mph in the right lane, when the rear left tire failed suddenly. I started decelerating as the vehicle seemed to remain in control, when all of the sudden it made a hard right on us and things went silent and felt like slow motion as we were no longer on our tires, but that silence was quickly broken as we landed on the drivers side and started rolling. I remember going over twice; witnesses said we went over four to five times; and we landed off the freeway about 80 feet out in the desert, coming to rest on the passenger side. Immediately, we made sure everyone was okay, and my wife got the kids out since if I unbuckled, I would have fallen on her. I was exiting the vehicle as several witnesses were running down to help. One of the witnesses was an off-duty sheriff’s deputy that helped as we waited for paramedics and emergency responders. We ended up going to the hospital with my son for a possible concussion, but he ended up being okay thankfully. The rest of us escaped with just a couple scrapes and bruises, although very very shaken. Many of the first responders we talked to were amazed that we walked away from this. They said they often don’t see the same results from this type of wreck. One even said “say what you will about Toyota’s, but that thing held up and probably saved your life”.

Well, while it wasn’t exactly how we had planned on ending our trip, we feel fortunate that everyone miraculously walked away from the wreck and we will be able to enjoy more trips again in the future.

If anything, it does make for a good story....