The goal today would be to make it back to Norman from Ely without stopping overnight. Knowing I had a lot of driving ahead of me, I left Ely at 6:30am PDT. I went east on US 50 from Ely to Salina UT, east on I-70 to Brendel UT, south on US 191 to Monticello UT, east on US 666 (no kidding) to Cortez CO, east on US 160 to Pagosa Springs CO, south on US 84 to Tierra Amarilla NM, east on US 64 to Cimarron NM, Hwy 58 east to Springer NM, US 56/412 east to Clayton NM, US 87 east to Dumas TX, Hwy 152 east to Sweetwater OK, Hwy 6 east to Elk City OK, I-40 east to Oklahoma City OK, then I-35 south to Norman. 24 hours, 5 minutes, and 1296 miles later I found myself back at my apartment. A very exhausting drive, but well worth the effort, as I was rewarded with stunning scenery throughout the trip. The highlights had to have been seeing all the wind sculpted rock formations in southeastern Utah, as well as travelling across the high terrain of southwestern Colorado and northern New Mexico. The terrain in these areas was especially green and lush, with streams filled to the banks with runoff. There were even patches of old snow in shady areas along US 64 between Tierra Amarilla and Tres Piedras NM. Despite that, the weather was quite warm for most of my trip, with temperatures in the upper 80s at Cortez CO (7000 ft above sea level!). I did get into some light rain showers in northern New Mexico, and even saw an isolated high-based thunderstorm in Dumas TX. This storm was well below severe limits, but it did produce lightning for more than two hours as it slowly drifted southwest. Things calmed down by the time I got back into Oklahoma, where I was treated to a gorgeous sunrise near Elk City. After getting home at 8:30am CDT, I went to bed and slept until around 8pm or so.

Western Utah is just as remote as central Nevada is, as one has to travel 80 miles after crossing the state line before they reach any towns.
	Scenes such as these are common along Interstate 70 between Salina UT and Green River UT.
Although I was hoping to see striated cloud formations during my time off, it was almost as nice to see these striated rock formations.
	My troubles attempting to videotape dust devils continued on my way back. I witnessed a large dust devil just east of the Utah/Colorado state line, which kicked up a lot of red dust as it tightened up and developed an amazing serpentine inner core. But like the 983 other dust devils I had seen this trip, it was just too far away to get good video. As a result, the dust devil is very hard to see in this zoomed in image - although it can barely be made out between the arrows.
Scattered showers developed in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico late in the afternoon, with a wannabe wall cloud near Pagosa Springs CO.

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