The Great American Road Trip - 16 Rules

"Cruise with the windows down and get in touch with the road."

Goblin Valley
Rule number 6: The farther off the beaten path you get, the better the tourist spots get. Goblin Valley is in central Utah, almost 60 miles south of I-70, but when you're there you'd swear you were on the moon.

Indian Jones III filming location
Look familiar? If you saw River Phoenix getting chased by tomb raiders in Indian Jones III, you should recognize this spot in Arches National Park, north of Moab, Utah. We didn't come across any gold artifacts while we were there, but then again, we didn't get shot at either! Rule number 11: Don't get shot at.

Diesel Toys
Truck stops are always entertaining. Rule number 12: Make sure you take in all the local sites. We came across this 25-ton Volvo L150E front-end loader on its way to the coal mines outside of Salt Lake City. A machine like this costs over $250,000, has a 12-yard bucket and a 287hp diesel engine, and has to be shipped without the tires so it will fit on the trailer.

The loader's wheels were wrapped in sacrificial lumber so that it could be driven on and off the trailer. Who knew?

Abandoned Military Bases
Rule number 13: When your road trip takes you far from civilization you tend to stumble into to things that people don't want you to find. Or in this case, things that most people just never knew about. Southeast of Green River, Utah, is what's left of the Utah Launch Complex. This was where the U.S. Army launched 141 Athena missiles more than 400 miles from Green River to White Sands, New Mexico, as part of the Defense Department's Advanced Ballistic Re-entry Systems (ABRES) program from 1964 to 1974. Basically, this was where we got really good at launching things into space and getting them to come back down to earth exactly where we wanted them to.

Rule number 14: No trespassing. The facility looks like it has been abandoned for a long time, but it's still off-limits and should not be explored without permission. We shot these photos with a powerful zoom lens from outside the gate. This hangar-like building could have been where scientists assembled the rockets before they were launched into space.

Crystal Geyser
Not far from the Utah Launch Complex, at the end of a dirt road, is the Crystal Geyser. Situated on the banks of the Green River, this cold-water geyser spouts off once every 18 hours or so. We've never actually seen it fire off, but we watched the carbon-dioxide gas bubble out of it for more than a few hours before we got bored and left. Rule number 15: Don't ruin beautiful places that other people have a right to enjoy.

Rule number 16: Get home before it gets dark. A great road trip should be a recharging experience that helps you keep your life and the rest of the world in perspective. You want to come home off the road with enough time to do some laundry and get a full eight hours of sleep before you have to go to work the next day.

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The Great American Road Trip - 16 Rules

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