Tuesday April 21: Homeward Bound

Good evening everybody. Due to the nature of this third and final leg of our trip, finding time with an internet connection has been a little less reliable. Beginning yesterday, we started our return trip home. Yesterday was an intense day of driving and stunning scenery. As we left Vegas and traveled through Nevada, touched Arizona again, and moved into Utah, we both had the same though... now this is a desert. Neither one of us had a proper impression of what form the desert would take. I guess we assumed that it would be like we see in the movies, films like The Mummy; yah know, miles of sand and... sand. We expected to see it in Texas and New Mexico, but were surprised at the amount of plant life = no desert. Nevada, northern Arizona, and Utah, now that is barren. It was beautiful. Miles and miles and miles of rock, dirt, and mountain, but almost no life. Pillars of stone rising out of the wilderness to make any traveler just stop in stunned silence at the beautiful death that surrounded us. I couldn’t help develop a deeper respect for those ancient people who used to travel the land on horse, or even foot. I shudder at the thought of doing it without A/C.

We didn’t leave Vegas until 11am, and we lost an hour due to crossing a time zone, so darkness started to fall much sooner than we expected. We were just entering the state of Colorado as the sun disappeared over the horizon at our backs. Nuts. We really needed to get farther than the border of Utah/Colorado before we stopped for the night; so on we pushed. As soon as the light had vanished from the sky we began to get this claustrophobic feeling. The road was getting a bit more whinedy, and despite a beautifully clear sky where every star is visible, the world began to close in. Soon the road started to slope up some serious elevations (highest we saw was about 10,500 feet) and we had reached the Rocky Mountains. I am rather disappointed that we did this leg of the trip where we were unable to appreciated what I am absolutely sure was some spectacular scenery, but at the same time, driving it at night had its own share of excitement.

With all the twist and turns in the roads, the sharp inclines and sudden drops, it was an exciting stretch of road to drive. In the darkness, you could never see beyond the next turn, and sometimes not even that far. Driving it at night also meant we had the road almost to ourselves, with the exception of the frequent semi, we were able to just fly along a road that I would imagine would be incredibly painful in traffic. We passed by half a dozen small ski towns, each one looking like a beautiful place to come for a winter holiday. In the glow of the towns, I could just make out the ski slopes that rose up behind the villages. It seemed like you could go from the top of the ski mountain right into your resort hot tub without ever taking off your skis. The whole area was designed in preparation to receive a lot of snow. We even passed raised barricades, like the one you sometimes see at a train crossing, only this time, they were set up to completely block the highway. At first, we looked down our nose at these... what kind of wimps live down here, then after spending a bit more time on the roads agreed that it didn’t take much imagination to see how quickly these roads cold become treacherous. It was sad, but eventually we were on the last downward slope of the Rockies and the city of Denver was spread out before us. The plan was to get through the city and find some place to sleep on the other side. We had done a good job at avoiding most major city traffic, and didn’t want to be crossing the city in the middle of the morning rush hour. Once we transversed the city, it was time to find somewhere to lay our heads for a few hours. We pulled off into the first small town we found called Keenesburg and the only hotel we located had a nice big sign saying “No Vacancy”, so we moved on. The next town, Roggen... well, Roggen didn’t exist. We pulled off on the exit the highway signs said, but there was no town although, there was a welcome sign. Sigh... it was starting to get late; it was 1:30am. Once we were back on the highway, we noticed the next town was called Wiggins. Pete and I looked at each other and grinned. Surely a place with a name like that would have a bed available for a couple of weary Canadians. Unfortunately, we were disappointed once more, and we were becoming discouraged. Finally, the next town, Fort Morgan had a Super 8 right beside the highway, and yes, the door was unlocked, and yes they had a room. Within seconds of entering the room we were climbing into bed, it was going to be a very short night.

Stupid alarm clock. Five hours after getting into bed, the buzzer was going and it was time to get up and get gone. After a small meal from the continental breakfast table, we were back in the car and on the road again. We were in the hotel for almost exactly 7 hours. On one hand, it seems like a very short stay for paying full price for a room, but at the same time.... it was really nice to sleep on a bed for a few hours.

Yesterday we travelled just shy of 1400km. I am not sure what that is in miles, but considering we didn’t leave our Vegas hotel until 11 and we lost an hour by crossing a time zone, I was very pleased at the distance covered. This morning, we left our Colorado hotel at 9am, two hours earlier than we left Vegas. We also don’t think we have any massive mountain ranges that we need to cross. With these in mind, we hope to be able to get even further tonight. In fact, there is a nagging idea in the back of my head that says we might be able to make the journey from Vegas to Cambridge in only 3 very full days. If we push the way we did yesterday, we may be able to get to Chicago or beyond tonight. If we can do that, I think the next night, we could sleep in our own beds. We are half way through day 2 of the trip home. I am unsure if our stamina can achieve this, but so far, we are doing fine. Fingers crossed.