Nevada and Utah — Oct 2025
I hadn’t been able to travel into the remote areas of America that I love, particularly on multi-day trips, for about a year. We were juggling unexpected serious house repair issues, that seemingly evolved daily, making planning nearly impossible. We never knew when a contractor might suddenly call with a change in plans, or more bad news. After we had finally finished the major repairs I excitedly began to plan a getaway to do some photography/Cinematography. I decided to spend some time in Nevada, and if time allowed, Utah.
Day One
I got a late start. When I was younger (rarer today now in my mid-seventies) I would typically begin a trip in the middle of the night allowing me to put on some distance early in the journey and to witness the coming sunrise. This time, I had driven my wife to the airport in the early morning and got mired down in the household chores needing to be done before I felt comfortable leaving home.
I left the house mid-late afternoon and drove 4 hours before heading up and over a pass in the Oregon Cascades. I found the empty parking lot of a ski area near the summit and crawled into the back of my truck to sleep the remainder of the night.
Day Two
When I awoke in the morning there was ice on the windows. I slipped back into the driver’s seat and continued on down the road.
I have travelled much of the first part of this route to Nevada more than several times before, and mostly wanted to push through and into Nevada, taking a few photos along the way. The road was not deserted, but open. A car or truck would pass me going the other way about every five minutes or so. It quickly dropped down out of the dry conifers of the national forest and was now snaking through across the rocky undulating landscape of high desert rangeland, occasionally following along a stream bed through a valley.
I was cruising along this rural highway for about two hours when I came over the brow of a ridge on a curve and was forced to suddenly slow and move over to the edge of the road. Coming at me in the opposite direction was a slow moving pickup truck — now only a couple hundred feet ahead. It was partially across the centerline. Standing upright in the back of the truck was a man, leaning against, and slightly forward over the top of the cab. His arms were stretched toward the sky and he held a giant, badly-written sign.
Did that sign say CASH? There had been no time to study the handwritten letters before it went past. I was far too focused on not hitting the truck. I tried to understand what was happening — it made no sense. I heard the man yell at me as he went by. What? I slowed even further, to a near crawl. Something was up. Did they need gas money? That made no sense…then I finished rounding the curve to see this…
Oh! COWS!
A little later I passed these onlookers.
Then the weather began to deteriorate.