I lost count of the number of historic barns and rusted vintage pickups along the way, but that wasn’t unexpected… But because of the geography, what that translated to was little knots of traffic stuck behind trucks on the mountain passes, and then long, long stretches of empty road, like in the above drawing. I wasn’t alone for the whole trip the secret is definitely out about the Loneliest Road (thanks to Nevada tourism plugging it as a destination all its own), and there were other lookie-loos like me, as well as the occasional long-haul trucker. The mostly two-lane road traverses the Great Basin desert, which consists of basin-and-range topography: wide, flat, parched valleys punctuated by parallel mountain ranges. If you’re looking for a truly solo road trip experience, look no farther than the Loneliest Road: US Highway 50, where it crosses Nevada. Still, once my heart rate returned to normal, I tried to remind myself that maybe he wasn’t interrupting my solo road trip-maybe I was interrupting his. Didn’t even move-he made me go around to continue on my way, while he stared me down. I screeched to a halt (and thus vindicated myself for sticking to the speed limit), stopping just a foot or two from him, and he didn’t even flinch. I rounded a blind curve to find this fella standing calmly on the yellow line. but the road pulled a few fast ones on me, all the same. I knew the drive would have spectacular scenery,Īnd the squiggles on the map promised a fun challenge of curving blacktop.Īnd I’ve done enough winding desert drives in the Southwest to expect surprises along the way. The highway itself, completed in 1940 by CCC road builders, is legendary-but because of its remote location, I had never managed to get there on one of my previous Southwest trips. I was in southeastern Utah, and I wanted to tick another highway off my road-trip bucket list: State Route 12, which cuts through part of the mostly-wilderness, sprawling, painted-desert expanse of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Well, it wasn’t the Loneliest Road, but I certainly had a lonely-road solo drive on the day before I crossed Nevada. It felt like winning a trophy for braving the crowd earlier. So while the hordes teemed in Zion Canyon, I had this view all to myself. Not one soul, save the ranger manning the lonely visitor center. But a kind park ranger gave me a great tip: she told me that if I wanted to escape the crowds, I should try Zion’s lesser-known sister site: the Kolob Canyons Unit, just forty miles to the northwest. On my most recent visit, it worked out that I was there during spring break week for most of Utah’s colleges and universities-needless to say, I rubbed shoulders (literally! The shuttle bus was packed!) with a whole lotta fresh-faced students that day. Nowadays Zion is a lot like the Grand Canyon: there are so many visitors that you can no longer drive the park road in your own car for most of the year, and forget any hope of a solitary moment. In the twenty years that had passed since I first visited the park (when it was a sleepy secret), word had definitely gotten out. When I think of solitude on the road, I’ll admit the last place I’d associate with it is Zion National Park. In the meantime, hug your loved ones, take a road trip, write your legislators, sketch something beautiful, and raise a glass to Chandler’s memory. Please bear with us as we process and contact outstanding orders, and please check back here later for future updates. We have closed Chandler’s online shops for the time being, to give her family the space to grieve and process this tragic event. We’ve started a fundraiser and if you’d like to help, please go to We all have to learn how to move forward without her, somehow. Our energy moving forward is directed at supporting her husband, The Tailor, and their four-year-old son. While Chandler was very protective of her family life in her beloved Tacoma, she was also an incredible wife and mother. “Artist” barely encompasses all her extraordinary talents, as she was also an engaging teacher, podcaster, blogger, historian, travel expert, story-teller, adventurer, letterer, musician, entrepreneur, feminist, and collaborator. She did it with passion, dedication, and exquisite beauty. In her short life, she filled countless sketchbooks and created public art and signage, paintings, drawings, textiles, artist books, photographs-you name it, she did it. She was just 41 years old, and leaves behind an astonishing body of work as an author and artist. Our dear friend Chandler passed away on April 2 from sudden and severe pneumonia.
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