Utah

Ah, Utah. I must now make another movie reference. Has anyone seen SLC Punk? Turns out they were right.

Like most of the trip, I planned out all sorts of great things to see in Utah that we mostly skipped in favor of making time. But not today! We were going to see Arches National Park if it killed us, I would make sure of it! Once we hit the red dessert landscape with all of its strange rock formation and signs that read “No Services next 50 miles,” I knew we were not in Kansas anymore. I mean, Tennessee. Well, you understand. It was stunningly different on the west side of the Rockies! I made Trevor take some crazy exit off the main freeway so we could drive through a ghost town. It was creepy--dilapidated buildings with boarded up windows and doors that seemed to have no reason for ever being built in the first place… we did pass a sizable peloton of cyclists out there in the freighting desolate landscape, if you can believe it!



The road winded around and down into a valley carved out by the Colorado River. Again, it was truly gorgeous here. Not in the Hidden Valley way, more like a Road Runner/Coyote cartoon sort of way. Like nearly everywhere else in the United States in July, it was hot, so Trev decided to pull over at a sandy bank and take a dip in the river. It was wide, deep and really quite fast. He changed into his swimsuit and I nearly did, but then a rent-a-camper of Germans pulled up and I was too embarrassed. But I did roll up my pant legs and wade around while Trevor went for a swim. The water was shockingly cold! But did it ever feel good in that dry heat!





Before too long, we made it to Arches. It is a pretty large park, be we allocated most of the day to driving/hiking about. We followed a line of cars upwards into a sort of plateau and just pulled over into a parking lot at any of the rock formations we wanted to see. We weren’t very well equipped for dessert hiking however so we just stuck to the main attractions. Don’t get me wrong, they were stunning! Holes in the side of a rock 150 feet wide and high, enormous “spines” jutting out of the sandy red earth, boulders the size of three-story buildings teetering on the edge of a cliff… I believe these formations were among the strangest and most beautiful things I’ve even seen nature produce. If only it weren’t so hot and we ran out of water! Alas it was and we did and were just as eager as reluctant to leave the park and head to our campsite in Provo, just outside Salt Lake City.

This in itself was a feat of a drive. Straight through the dessert, no services, half a tank of gas, minimal water and only a few hours to drive about 200 miles. The fist 150 or so were trying, but once we hit a small mountain range/national forest, it was much nicer. All the way into Provo, actually, was really nice. I even made the comment that Utah doesn’t seem like such a bad place to live. How wrong I was!

When we got to our campsite and pitched the tent, we went out to look for some food (settled on Indian) and drove around the town a little bit. Provo is pretty large, but it’s center is a cute little college town. We were debating about the alcohol at this point… In SLC Punk, they would drive to Wyoming to buy beer. but why? There seemed to be bars all around. We figured whatever law it was that disallowed alcohol in the 90’s had since expired and bought ourselves a 40 or Tecante. We sat at the campsite and drank it for awhile, enjoying Tecante more than either of us ever had. Oh, but what does this label say? 3.2% alcohol content? What?? Apparently, all these brewers create beer especially for Utah to keep the content under 4%! What a rip! No wonder they drove out of state. I was so infuriated by this discovery, I completely changed my mind about the state of Utah. It sucks. Don’t ever go.

Colorado

So I don’t know about you, but when I think of Colorado, I think mountains, snow, men with beards, maybe a log cabin or two… Of course, I had never been and only know of the state via friends who ski there or move there to be mountain hippies (what, you didn’t know there was such a thing?). However, it turns out a good portion of Colorado is flat, hot, dusty and more or less a lot like Kansas until one hits the Rocky Mountains. Oh, and did I mention it was hot and dusty? We had to stop a dozen times just to buy water, chap stick and a large watermelon which we ate half of in one sitting. It was delicious.



Well, we got the hell outta Dodge in the morning hours and even made a stop to see the original Santa Fe Trail. This reminds me of the numerous times my family and I stopped on the Natchez Trace on our way back from the reunion in Mississippi to see the “original Trace wagon tracks.” It was always a little disappointing; just a smallish sort of ditch on the side or the road. Think drainage ditch with a lot of history… Well, this was similar except in a big dry prairie. When we got out of the car, we followed this sidewalk that just sort of ended at a plaque. Ah well, we got a picture anyway.



After a few tormenting hours of back sweat and dehydration, we can just begin to make out the mountain range in front of us and some looming cloud cover. As we roll into Pueblo, the wind picks up and some teasing drops begin to fall, but in the midst of our excitement due to an end of the monotonous landscape, we manage to wander off route 50 and head toward Colorado Springs. Whoops! Well, no problem, we’ll just get off at the next exit and turn around. What’s that sign say? Whatever, just get off. Wait… why does the road turn to dirt and dead end at these railroad tracks? Is this even an exit? How do we get back on the freeway? Oh, we just have to reverse a quarter mile on this dirt road in the windy rain? Great! Oh, I guess that also means we have to get back on via the off ramp that wasn’t really an exit at all. No merging lane, just a bumpy shoulder. Great! Has anyone ever seen The Hills Have Eyes? If it took place in Colorado, this is how the movie would begin… So, we’re forced to drive like 10 miles in the wrong direction before there is a legitimate exit where we can turn around. Oh, and the rain? Yeah, drove right out of the cool reprieve before we could enjoy it. But enough grumbling!

The Rocky Mountains, though they only took about 2 hours to drive through, were gorgeous! Once we got to the top of Monarch Pass, we even saw snow on the ground, so needless to say it was far cooler. Route 50 followed a river all the way through and some of the views were just so stunning I wish I had better pictures to share. We were rushing to make it to the next campsite before it closed a 8 p.m., so we really couldn’t stop to enjoy the vistas. You know the picture on the front of the Hidden Valley salad dressing bottles? I’m pretty sure it’s based on the valleys heading out of the mountains. All moist and green and rolling with a pleasant little creek to keep everything all fertile. Lovely…



Well, we made it to our campsite in plenty of time and even got in a quick game of putt-putt golf. I think I won… Unfortunately, the rain followed us over the mountains and as we were pitching our tent, the wind picked up and there was some pretty intimidating lighting and thunder off in the distance. Luckily, our grandparents had to foresight and compassion to buy us a tarp and some extra tent stakes in the instance of rain (given our little adventure through the Ozarks). So we hurriedly got the tent up and painstakingly erected the tarp in such a precise way as to ensure absolutely no rain whatever would enter our sleeping champers. We even provided ourselves with entertainment until we fell asleep with a 40 of beer and Trev’s i-Pod wannabe thing. So we hunkered down just in the knick of time and waited for the downpour. And waited. Finished our beer and waited some more. It’s like mother nature was just messin’ with us. No rain fell that night, we just had the fortune of sleeping in an exceptionally humid tent. Nice.