On the last day of our vacation we decided not to return the way we came, on a well established dirt road, but instead to opt for the “off-off-road” adventure: to follow the primitive trail through the Black Rock Desert Wilderness directly to Black Rock at the northern reach of the Playa.

This route, at times a barely discernable track on the rocky desert, passed by sand dunes and tall cliffs whose colors reminded me of similar features, such as “Artist’s Palette,” in Death Valley National Park.

Our long day’s drive back was punctuated by our second flat tire of the trip. It was a bad place for this to happen, on a road that sees much less traffic than it did a hundred and fifty years ago. It would’ve been a far worse place for a breakdown in the middle of August when the daytime temperature here might reach 115°.

In fact it appeared that some other doomed voyagers had once found themselves stuck in this spot. While I changed the tire, Judy explored down the path and discovered a large “S.O.S.” spelled out with dark rocks on the white alkali of the desert.