This is a rest stop on US-50 aka “The Loneliest Road in America.” Resting is really all that one could do there, as there are no bathrooms or vending machines, just two covered benches and some trashcans that looked beyond alien in this setting. I'd been trying to find a good place to take a picture of the million yellow flowers between the road and the mountains and, seeing signs for this rest area, I figured I had my chance. I pulled to a stop, got out, and immediately knew I had to write here. This may be the most quiet place I have ever been in my entire life. An occasional wind whips through, cars come and go with minutes between them, and some curious bugs have buzzed by my ears, but otherwise, there is nothing. Even this typing sounds cacophonous.
Seems like an appropriate place to stop and get back to Tuesday.
I woke up Tuesday morning in my guest room at Kelly and Will’s completely rejuvenated. Thankfully, our small brewery crawl left no hangover, so I popped out of bed and showered quickly. I then returned to my room and got dressed, at which point I realized I was not alone. A big, long-haired German Shepherd mix had come down the basement stairs to stare at me with a happy but curious expression. Kelly had mentioned that Will would pick up the dogs in the morning, so I knew to expect dogs, but it was still funny to have her looking up at me, head cocked as if to say, “Oh, you’re the visitor?” I sat down on the floor to pet her, which she accepted immediately, and listened to Kelly on the phone upstairs, working from the kitchen.
After spending some time with the pup, whose name I later learned was Amelia, I packed up and brought my things upstairs, waving silently at Kelly as she continued her call. Beyond, in the living room, I found Sensei, a smaller black dog with perked ears and a nervous little face. Sensei got his pets as well, curled up beneath my legs as I hung out on the couch to psych up for the day’s drive.
Once Kelly finished her call, she offered me coffee, oatmeal, and a delicious smoothie over which we discussed our consulting experiences. Then, since her workday had started and I had 7.5 hours of driving ahead, it was time to say goodbye. I gave Kelly a big hug and thanked her once again for the unexpected kindness and a fantastic chance to reconnect. I then scritched Sensei a few more times and made my exit. On the way out, I realized an immediate stop was in order, as a very large bird (Kelly suggested an eagle) had relieved itself on the windshield, driver's side. Let's call it a blessing.
After a sickening squeegee and a fill-up, I found I-70 and began my climb into the Colorado Rockies. The mountains rose faster than the road, soon looming on either side and dotted with pine trees. I'd always pictured snow-caps on grey rock when I thought of the Rockies, but the trees were legion.
As the road climbed, the altitude made itself known in the form of a headache. I suffered through it for a while, agog at the scenery and the thrilling drive beneath rock walls and past serene lakes.
The headache intensified as I neared Vail, however, so I decided to take some advice Kelly provided and get some medicine for my sinuses. This meant pulling into the heart of Vail, where I'm surprised I wasn't handed a pair of leggings just for stopping by, as it seemed to be all anyone was wearing. I found my relief at the Vail Safeway, which proved that no chain is above ski lodge architecture.
I may be ripping on Vail a bit, but I'm really just jealous...the place reeked of relaxation. It takes a lot to provoke the envy of the unemployed guy road-tripping across the US, but Vail managed very, very well.
The road found Eagle River, which itself found the Colorado. From there, the highway was at the mercy of the river, leading CJ and I through narrow canyons of towering rock. The lanes were narrow and the shoulders non-existent, so I have only one picture from a construction stop:
From there, the canyon widened, setting the rock faces farther back from the road, which itself criss-crossed the river over and over on its way west. The ridges grew even taller as I went and I couldn't help but stop and take pictures. I felt lucky to see such incredible landscapes during such a necessary, point-A-to-point-B drive and, with 7.5 hours being the shortest day so far, I felt I had the time to appreciate it.
The last major city on the way out of Colorado was Grand Junction, just before which the picture above was taken. I cleared the western corner of the pictured ridge and, seeing the city ahead, started looking for gas stations. Casually glancing to my right, however, I saw the longest, most imposing wall of rock I've ever seen in my life. If I wasn't a Song of Ice and Fire fan, I don't know how I'd reference it against anything at all because it seemed like a more sloped palette-swap of The Wall. I missed the opportunity to photograph it, as I was too busy swearing in my wonder, but here is a picture of what I just found out are called the Book Cliffs:
"Near Grand junction, CO" by User Skez on en.wikipedia - Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is (was) here03:31, 2 March 2006 Skez 992x708 (137,232 bytes) (Near Grand Junction, CO Taken by Sean Davis http://flickr.com/photos/skez/32161524/). Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Commons.
I stared at the cliffs as I filled up the tank, already reeling at what I had seen on the drive. Verdant pine forests carved up by snow-less ski runs, mountain lakes that reminded me of Champlain and Placid, and this wall out of King Kong (ok, maybe I could manage without GRRM). It was probably the best drive so far, I thought.
And then I hit Utah...
Of course, that's imagining people living in the parts of Utah I now drove through, where it's hard to imagine life at all. Even the road seemed cowed by the petrified waves of the terrain.
I stopped at a few "view areas" such as those pictured above and about half of them had a vendor in residence, usually a member of a local tribe, with their goods laid out on the ground for sale and a car nearby to offer a break from the sun. At the Black Dragon Canyon one (second from the bottom with the two orange-red ridges), the vendor sat on the ground, her back against the base of a sign describing the landscape, letting the thick post shade her as she sat. The goods sat unsold on the sidewalk in front of the parking lot, while another car, presumably the vendor's, sat two spots down from mine with two children playing in the backseat. I hadn't seen a city for the better part of an hour, which meant this family had traveled a long way to this empty place hoping to pique the interest of travelers that must only appear every half hour or so. Obviously, given the untended mementos, the hoping had stopped for the day. So soon after American pride had swelled my chest, reality let the air out. There's room for both patriotism and realism, certainly, and I think I came away from the day with both, but I drove back on to I-70 from that view area with more sighs than fanfare.
While the landscape continued to entrance and delight, the day was starting to take its toll. I am but one man and that was a lot of awe for one day. I-70 took me to US-50, which introduced me to its bread-and-butter: long straight-aways through broad grassy plains and scrub brush, screaming from one mountain range to the next. Taking it north, around a particularly jagged ridge, then south again on the other side, I finally came upon Fillmore, UT, first capital of Utah and my stop for the night.
My Best Western's restaurant, the Garden of Eat'n, makes a mean patty melt, which is how I closed the day. Well, that and a four dollar 7-and-7, after which I crossed the small parking lot, entered my room, and set about packing for this weekend's wedding, trying to continue on as though I hadn't just had the greatest drive of my life.
I should also say that, for all my wishy-washiness about having to keep paying off my car during this income-free period, CJ handled that day and this trip like a warrior. I made several attempts at capturing her glory when I entered Utah, but I think only the last one truly nailed her epic nature:
Oh, she's also become a bit of a mass murderer (taken in Grand Junction):
Next up: Wednesday and The Loneliest Road
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