Road Trip Month Post #4: Lost in Cow Hollow Utah!

   Don't let the pretty fields fool you like they did me - we were lost. It was my idea (husband) to take a little shortcut. Not everyone (wifey) agreed that this was a good idea, especially when the road turned to gravel…then sand. An old wooden sign declared this country road maze "Cow Hollow"... Let me explain.

Not a cow just yet.

  I should've seen it coming when there were shaved alpacas at the last gas station (pic above). Since our family has a cheap & technologically advanced yet sometimes limited smartphone situation (read about it here if you dare!), we were roadtriping this leg with a paper atlas only.

   Now, a paper atlas works fine in most situations, however, not so well in this one. I had planned an off-interstate shortcut on back roads to a cozy cabin reservation we had about 2 hours away. Problem was, my shortcut was on light grey colored roads in my handy paper atlas. It turns out, grey on the map equals dirt.

   Once the gravel/dirt/sand started I thought, what would the Top Gear UK guys do? They'd press on (in a compact car) for sure! As did we. Forever. The map was useless after awhile as there were several roads not listed. Then the cow hollow sign. Then cows...lots of cows.

   The sun was setting. There wasn't a house in sight or even fences that might lead to one. We were close to the point of just pulling over and setting up camp on private property and figuring it out in the morning when we struck navigational gold: the interstate! We were free!

  Not so fast. Although we were at the interstate, the road just went under - no on ramp. Great, now we'll just get lost on the other side of the freeway (and we did). This happened a few more times - get lost on this side, then again on the other. We finally ended up exactly where we started…about an hour later.

   So much for the cabin reservation (still two hours away). At least that's over…oh wait, it wasn't…flat tire! At least there's really nice hotels in Snowville, UT to stay at and sort the tire thing at in the morning…oh wait…

   ~Paul & Amber   ETC

P.S. Mooo!