The Final Route

Final Route

On the way home, I stop by and visit the Japanese relocation camp in Grenada, Colorado. This site is where Japanese citizens were held against their will in violation of the U.S. constitution during WW2.

Then:

Now:

The final route was 5474 miles which I did in 13 days.  I burned 118 gallons of fuel for an average of 46 mpg. I usually average about 44 mpg on gas with E10 gas which is what is sold in Virginia. In the west, gas without ethanol is widely available especially at the name brand gasoline retailers. On ethanol free gas, my mpg averaged 53 mpg. The government website on ethanol says that you should only experience about a 2-3% decrease in fuel economy on E10 ( 10% ethanol ). However, it says you should experience a 25-30% decrease in mpg when using E85. This was closer to my experience using E10.

I can can confirm after driving across the U.S. that Americans prefer to drive trucks rather than automobiles( SUVs are classified as trucks with lower mpg requirements ). Roughly 53% of passenger vehicles are trucks. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States#Total_number_of_vehicles

It takes 131,000 BTUs of energy to create 1 gallon of ethanol although one gallon of ethanol has only 77,000 BTUs of energy available. Every time a gallon of ethanol is produced, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs of energy ( http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/01/8.23.01/Pimentel-ethanol.html ).

It costs about half the price in fossil fuels to produce a gallon of ethanol which is why fossil fuels are used to produce ethanol. From a cost standpoint, it would be a glaringly losing proposition to use ethanol to produce ethanol.

If SUVs were reclassified as automobiles with the higher mpg requirements, that would go a long way toward reducing pollution rather than using ethanol which actually has the opposite effect. We could also save money by eliminating ethanol subsidies.

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Tweedledum: "I know what you're thinking about, but it isn't so, nohow."

Tweedledee: "Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

Tweedledee: "If you think we're wax-works, you ought to pay, you know!"

Tweedledum: "Contrariwise, if you think we're alive you ought to speak to us!"

Dee & Dum: "That's logic!"

Alice: "Well, it's been nice meeting you. Goodbye!"

Tweedledee: "You're beginning backwards!"

Tweedledum: "Aye, the first thing in a visit is to say: How do you do and shake hands, shake hands, shake hands. How do you do and shake hands and state your name and business."

Dee & Dum: "That's manners!"

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Sand Dunes National Park

Thursday, after surviving the bear, I head south to Alamosa to visit the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

It's an impressive pile of sand sitting at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

The specks are people.

Well, tomorrow is Friday and I decide to head home. It's a long drive about 1700 miles.

San Luis Valley

Leaving Ouray, my destination is the Orient Land Trust in the San Luis Valley which is between the San Juan and the Sangre de Cristo.  Both moutain ranges boast of at least a half a dozen peaks about 14,000 feet. I will camp out up slope on the Sangre de Cristo mountains at around 8,600' at Valley View Hot Springs which sits at the trail head of a trail that leads to the Orient Mine and a bat cave. The cave is the home to around 250,000 Mexican free tailed bats.

The San Luis Valley was the northern most outpost of sixteenth century Spain. If you remember your American history, you'll recall that the Spanish established the first non-native settlements in the Americas almost a century before the Jamestown colony in 1607 and before the Pilgrims at Plymouth Bay in 1620. In fact, the first non-native settlers on mainland North America were African slaves left in South Carolina in 1526 by Spaniards who abandoned a settlement attempt.

The Navajo Indians believe that the first man and first woman came up from the underworld in this valley. They also believe that it is the place where life enters and leaves this world.

The Ute Indians also lived here and when first encountering the Spanish in 1598, referred to their horses as 'magic dogs.' The Ute's routinely used dogs to pull their belongings. They successfully kept out 'settlers' until 1851.


Looking at the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

The base of the mountains lies about 7 miles away. Behind me are the San Juan mountains.

I took this from the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains looking across the valley to the San Juan mountains.

When I arrive at Valley View, they tell me a mother Black Bear and her cub are roaming around getting into the trash. The bear was relocated from the Colorado Springs are to Bonanza, Co which is about 50 miles north of this location. Colorado Department of Wildlife people show up and set traps to relocate the bears yet again.

I hike to the bat cave in the evening. About a 2 mile taking about 1.5 hours round trip.

Later that night, as I am asleep in my tent, the cub gets trapped in the bear trap which is a large steel cage. The mother is not happy and I hear her running around my tent. I get up as daylight dawns and walk down near the cage to have a look.

To the right of the bear behind the bushes is the trapped cub. Prior to this the mother bear was shot with rubber bullets. This usually drives most bears away but it hasn't worked on this one. To make a long story short, the bear was later shot and killed the next night. The rangers attempted to dart it four times, but this just made it more agitated.