Day 71- From The Desert To The Mountains

Two states, Utah and Colorado share a border and a river but similarities, at least for the beginning of the day , ended there. Once we left Moab and got onto Rte I-70 East, the land flattened out into those rolling dry plains like so much of the Southwest is made up of. I made a comment to Carl how there was a good looking hunk of a young man behind every tree. Of course, there wasn’t anything larger than a 3 ft tall bush in site. What I was seeing, however, were these metal step ladders placed over the 4 strand barbed wire fences every mile or so. At first, I thought this was strange but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I mean 4 strands of barbed wire is nasty business so if you need to get over to the other side, well there are limited options. Farmers and ranchers tend to frown on cut fences and people in need are not happy about getting clothing and skin shredded to bits. Shortly after crossing into Colorado, we began to notice several of those rocker arm pumps bringing oil to the surface. Wherever these are, there are also a collection of tanks and sometimes a little tool shed. One of these had a red light glowing by the door and we couldn’t help but laugh. Customers would be few and far between in that district. Those gently rolling plains became high sandstone mesas with huge skree piles on all sides. Off in the distance we could see what I considered to be serious mountains. And sure enough, we began to climb gradually at first. We pulled off in Rifle, CO for some gas. I mention this because the guy I used to work with, Ernie, lived in Colorado for a while and Rifle, specifically. The mountains loomed closer and ski are signs with names like Copper, Steamboat Springs and Breckenridge popped up. Now, we’ve become somewhat of a whiz in finding Wal-Marts. Call it a second sense if you will. But, here in the Vail area, we didn’t have a clue. When all of a sudden, on the highways signs that point out services such as gas, food and lodging, there was the familiar bright blue Wal-Mart name and logo so we turned and sure enough there it was only ¼ mile off the highway. We pulled in to get the few provisions we needed to take us to Gettysburg, PA. We had no intentions of staying the night but wouldn’t have been able to anyway. We had just encountered our 2nd “No Camping or Overnight Parking Allowed” store. After a 45 minute break, we hit the road once more and began seeing signs about a 3 day Bike Race in the area which list traffic restrictions, road and exit closures and parking bans through Vail Pass. I’ve since found out it’s the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. As we drove, we caught glimpses of support vehicles laden with spare bikes, riders peddling like crazy, motorcycle escorts, a helicopter for aerial coverage, the banners over the course announcing the near finish of the race and finally the finish line. There were thousands of spectators strung out over miles. We figured the winner of the stage had already come in because hundreds of amateur cyclists were leaving the area including one tall lanky fellow who I could have sworn was Lance Armstrong ( not racing, watching ). Did I mention during this whole exciting bit, we were still climbing only now it was much steeper. Most of the tractor-trailers were down to 50 mph and so were we. Finally, we leveled off just before entering the Johnson Tunnel, finished in 1979, at 11,158 ft above sea level. As we came down the other side of the Rockies, I looked down to see chairlifts below us. You know you’re up high when you look down on ski lifts. And as much as I enjoyed the desert with all of the impressive multihued rocks and weird weather and water worn shapes, I just love seeing full sized forests all over the place. After a time, we reached Denver and wouldn’t you know, it was just 5:00 PM, rush hour. The west bound lane seemed backed up in real good order so I was feeling pretty good about our east bound lane which was still moving steadily. Carl mentioned it might change when we hit the middle of the city with people leaving and sure enough, not 2 miles later, traffic slowed to a crawl. There was an accident up ahead. We hit the choke point in time to see a car being loaded onto a tow truck. The front end was smashed pretty good. That was in the high speed lane while in the breakdown lane was a utility trailer just sitting. It looked undamaged except attached to the ball hitch area was an entire Reese Hitch system, the receiver portion having been ripped off whatever vehicle it had been attached to. After we passed this exit, traffic resumed it’s normal pace and we were out of the city about 15 minutes later. Clear of the city, the landscape was now more agricultural and grazing lands. The were small farms or ranches on the horizon, but there were also quite a few abandoned homes and falling down barns near the highway. Anytime you have grazing lands, there is the probability of grazing animals so I wasn’t surprised to see large herds of beef cattle and saddle horses. I mentioned to Carl how strange it was to have such a drastic swing in just 40 miles. It was nearing the end of the day and we started looking for a rest area. We found one which was closed to overnight parking and another in the west bound lane so after driving an additional 45 miles, we pulled into a Flying J Truck Center along with about 50 big rigs. Our little camper is backed in next to a “no parking” zone where trash barrels are. That way, we take up only one spot and can still open the slider without getting into any of the truckers’ ways. Space is so tight, Carl doesn’t dare to leave our steps open all the way. It ought to be an interesting night. Yesterday was the end of the 10th week and we have traveled a total of 12,236 miles so far.