Just the Right Amount of Wrong?

The Trip – Day 7

Hurricane, Utah – Valle, Arizona

Las Vegas, Hoover Dam

381 miles

This day was to be primarily a heavy driving day. The Grand Canyon, our next national park stop, required some back-tracking, so we had planned to drive southwest from Hurricane, around Las Vegas, and then turn east into northern Arizona and continue to the small town of Valle, 30 miles south of the south rim of the Grand Canyon. As we left Hurricane in the early morning, I thought it would be fun to drive through Las Vegas rather than skirt around it, to drive down the iconic Las Vegas Strip just to say we had done it. Las Vegas was a small town (by New York and Chicago standards) and going through it shouldn't take much longer than looping around it. Neither my husband nor I had ever been to Vegas, our only familiarity with it being the movie Ocean's Eleven, the George Clooney/Brad Pitt/Matt Damon remake of a Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin/Sammy Davis, Jr. classic. My husband agreed to drive the Strip while I took some photos of the Bellagio out the car window to send to our youngest daughter, a big fan of the George Clooney Ocean's Eleven.

Approaching Las Vegas

Our drive along Interstate 15 got more deserty-looking as we approached Las Vegas. The city appeared in the distance, looking smaller and less gaudy than I had imagined (but, then, I have seen both New York's Time Square and the Wisconsin Dells...). I had carefully planned to drive through Vegas just past the morning rush hour, so I thought, not realizing that leaving Utah for Nevada would move us to an hour earlier, from the Mountain to the Pacific time zone briefly before we would be back again in the Mountain time zone when we entered Arizona. Needless to say, the traffic on the Las Vegas Strip was bumper to bumper, making for both excellent picture taking and an understandably crabby driver. The buildings and billboards and architecture of the city seemed surreal, like a caricature of itself to two people who had never seen it before (one of whom was presently not really seeing any more of it than the back of the car in front of him). We passed the Cosmopolitan, and I pondered what their television ad campaign - “Just the right amount of wrong” - said about the city as a whole. When we finally moved beyond the Strip and were heading back to the interstate, we passed by a young man walking aimlessly along the sidewalk, randomly throwing traffic cones into the lanes of oncoming traffic. Somehow it didn't seem that out of place, though I did think he had exceeded the right amount of wrong...

 

The Bellagio

The Cosmopolitan

Approaching Lake Mead

Back on the road heading east into Arizona, we came upon another “surprise

The Hoover Dam from the walkway

adventure”. In all my trip planning, I somehow missed that the Hoover Dam was on the route toward the Grand Canyon. The sprawling blue of Lake Mead appeared ahead of us, then a sign for the Hoover Dam viewing area. Of course, we turned off the highway and headed for the viewing area, needing something to cleanse our retinas of the sights of the city we had just gone through. The Hoover Dam was just the thing. After days of seeing God-created wonders, the man-made wonders of Vegas were decidedly underwhelming, but the man-made dam was an impressive sight. A viewing walkway and information area had been built overlooking the dam, parallel to the highway. It was extremely windy that day, so strong that I felt I finally knew what it meant to be blown off one's feet. The viewing walkway had high railings, so there was no danger of being blown over the rail, but we had to hold onto the railings to pull ourselves along the walkway against the wind. The effort, however, was worth it. The Colorado River, which we had first seen flowing through Glenwood Canyon in Colorado, in Grand Junction, and would see the next day twisting through the Grand Canyon, was here held back by the huge dam, creating the very blue and enormous Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume. Built during the Great Depression for flood control, irrigation and hydroelectric power, the Boulder Dam, renamed for President Herbert Hoover, was also a major roadway until 2010 when the Hoover Dam Bypass was completed, much to the relief of travelers who could be delayed for several hours in the traffic congestion crossing the popular tourist attraction.

Hoover Dam and walkway panorama photo

 

We continued on after the dam through the arid land of northern Arizona to the small (Tiny!) town of Valle, an easy drive from the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Valle consisted of a gas station, a convenience store, a Flintstone-themed campground, an airport (!) and our “hotel” complex, a neat but rustic, bare-boned western-themed collection of inn and motel rooms. Our outside-entrance second-floor motel room had a painting on the door of Clint Eastwood from one of his spaghetti westerns. The room was “quaint”, but it was clean and close to where we were heading the next day. 

Our room for the night

 

This morning I came, I saw and I was conquered, as everyone would be who sees for the first time this great feat of mankind.

- President Franklin Roosevelt, at the dedication of the Boulder (Hoover) Dam, September 30, 1935

You of all people should know, Terry, in your hotel, there's always someone watching.

- Tess (Julia Roberts) to Terry (Andy Garcia), owner of the Bellagio, Ocean's Eleven

Next:

Grand!

The Trip – Day 8

The Grand Canyon

48 miles

Tax Dollars Well Spent

THE TRIP – Day 6

Zion National Park

50 miles 

We got up early for our Zion National Park visit, driving the scenic twisty 25 miles from our hotel in Hurricane to the entrance of the park. The websites for most of the national parks warn visitors that the parking lots fill up by 10 a.m., encouraging them to come early or come late if they want any chance of finding a parking spot in the park. We took the warnings seriously, getting to Zion (and the Grand Canyon and Yosemite) by 8 a.m. and finding ample parking.

The amazing shuttle bus amidst the scenery...

From May through November, Zion National Park closes its main road to all car traffic. It, instead, provides an excellent free shuttle bus service throughout the park, taking hikers to trailheads and sightseers to overlooks, or providing air-conditioned comfort to those who just want to look out the large bus windows and open sky-lights. Rarely do the words “tax dollars well-spent” flit across my mind, but spending the day using Zion's shuttle system, the words did just that. Buses promised to come every ten minutes. They came more frequently. There was taped tour-like information piped into the sound system, telling about the features of the park. The bus drivers would add their own color commentary between taped speakers and were a wealth of information. The only downside for me was the jarring realization that we truly were POACA*. There was a sign in the front of the bus asking that riders give up those seats for the disabled and elderly when needed. Whenever we stepped on a bus, people would jump up and offer us seats. We would decline. “We're fine, really...” “Ask us again at 4 o'clock this afternoon”, my husband would say.

Water hikers in the Virgin River

We rode the shuttle directly to the end of the almost nine mile road for our first hike. A friend who had previously hiked Zion recommended the Riverside Walk there, a relatively level trail along the Virgin River through a shaded canyon. At the end of the trail (for us), hikers who had water shoes and wading sticks would continue on for a nine plus mile round trip hike, walking in the shallow, rocky river as the canyon walls narrowed until they could touch opposite walls simultaneously. It looked like fun, but the estimated hiking time was eight hours, so we hopped on the shuttle and went to hike to the Weeping Rock, the Lower Emerald Pools and visited every overlook on the shuttle route. The Court of the Patriarchs was my personal favorite view, three towering 6,800+ft. rock formations, named by a Methodist minister for the Old Testament patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When we first approached them in the shuttle bus, they loomed so tall that their peaks could only be seen out of the bus's skylights. Again, ...awe...some... and impossible to fully capture with a camera.

The Court of the Patriarchs  

Weeping Rock

The Great White Throne

The day was hot, and Zion is a strange hybrid of desert and river valley, very warm in the sun, but cool and pleasant in the shade, with small trickles of water running down the canyon walls allowing for vegetation to grow. After a long day of short hikes, we rested under a huge shade tree outside the Zion Lodge. I fought the temptation to take a serious nap on the cool grass under the tree. I was surrounded by hikers who may have fought the same temptation, but had obviously lost...

The California Condor

The national parks all have excellent ranger programs, something we did not intentionally seek out, our main priority being hikes and scenic overlooks. But we encountered a ranger with telescopes set up to view a hole in a cliff face, an active nest of the rare California condor. (“Tax dollars well-spent” flitted across my mind again...) While we were viewing the nesting area through the telescopes, the condor came out and flew above the cliff, riding the thermals before returning to its nest. I used my husband's paparazzi-quality zoom lens to capture a rare close-up shot of the huge bird in flight.

It was late in the day, and we would still have the 25 miles to drive back to our hotel. We took one last ride on the shuttle bus, again refusing the front seats, and just sat back in air-conditioned bliss as we traveled the entire loop of the Zion canyon road without getting out once, just enjoying the views along the way one last time. Tax...dollars...well...spent...

*People Of A Certain Age

National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst. - Wallace Stegner

Next:

Just the Right Amount of Wrong?

The Trip – Day 7

Hurricane, Utah – Valle, Arizona

Las Vegas, Hoover Dam

381 miles

Cathedrals of Stone

THE TRIP – Day 5

Richfield, Utah – Hurricane, Utah 
Kolob Canyons

157 miles

We had a short day of driving ahead of us before we arrived at a hotel near Zion National Park where we planned to spend the following day. A little research the previous night found a second, less developed section of Zion called Kolob Canyons that had an entrance and a scenic drive easily accessible from Interstate 15. This unplanned stop looked like a nice way to spend the afternoon. The twisty five mile road had many scenic pull-offs, with a parking area at its end and a trailhead for an even more scenic hike. We drove through towering rocks of rose-colored sandstone along a paved road of similar reddish hue. The roadside geological rock formations we had seen previously along the Utah highways paled in comparison to these rocks. These rocks were awesome, not in a “Hey, that's neat!” way but in a holy, magnificent, overpowering “...This...is...awe...some...” way. In a perfect world, I would have brought a lawn chair, found some shade, and just sat for hours, alternating between worshiping God and just sitting in silent awe in His presence within the walls of this incredible cathedral.  But I ended up doing a much abbreviated version of that, moving on from overlook to overlook, praising God and soaking in the ever-changing rock formations, marveling that the Creator of the universe was so inordinately fond of rocks and, of course, taking photos. We parked at the end of Kolob Canyons Road and headed out on the trail which led to an overlook facing south toward the distant north rim of the Grand Canyon. The path was lined with wildflowers, many of which I had never seen before, flowering cacti, and some cute, photogenic lizards. And the views continued to be ...awe...some... 

 

After our hike and return drive, we checked into our hotel and went to a local diner-type restaurant for dinner. Here we had the first of what would be three “Oneonta” encounters on our trip. My husband was wearing a tee-shirt from our alma mater, a small state school in Oneonta, New York. When we lived in New York, we regularly ran into people from New York who had never heard of it. Here, in a small restaurant in tiny Hurricane, Utah, a women from Utica, New York came up to us and commented on us being from New York, having recognized the Oneonta tee-shirt. Small school, small world...

As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” - Luke 19:37-40

 Next:

 

Tax Dollars Well Spent

THE TRIP – Day 6

Zion National Park

50 miles

The Old Married Couple Meet the Kissing Couple

THE TRIP – Day 4

Grand Junction, Colorado – Richfield, Utah
Colorado National Monument National Park

223 miles

We had spent the night in Grand Junction and decided we would use the flex time the long first two days of driving had bought us to visit our first park, an unplanned stop at Colorado National Monument National Park. It was also our 39^th wedding anniversary that day, so we planned to celebrate by arriving at the park early, doing some easy hiking, eating a backpack lunch and having a short afternoon of driving. Because we are POACA* the first thing I did as we entered the park was get a National Parks Senior Pass, a ten dollar purchase that is good for life. Yep, the rest of the parks on this trip would be free as were any we might plan to visit in the future.

Colorado National Monument, named for the monument-like rock formations in its canyon, had a long scenic drive as well as a number of both long and short hiking trails. We opted out of most of the long drive to hike a number of the shorter trails. We were above the canyon, on the rim, with excellent views of the monument rock structures. They had all been given names, some being Independence Monument, The Pipe Organ, The Kissing Couple. The Kissing Couple did in fact look like a man and woman kissing, he with a hat, she in a long dress and a bustle. We also walked around the Saddlehorn, another rock formation, quite different geologically from the monuments. Our last hike took us to the end of a slot canyon, where we walked and walked as the canyon walls got closer and closer together. The day was warm, but not hot, the park not crowded, the hiking pleasant and relatively easy. An excellent start to our national parks adventure.

Kissing Couple

Old Married Couple (39th Wedding Anniversary Selfie)

Monuments

The Saddlehorn

The Saddlehorn (detail)

In the slot canyon

Looking up from within the slot canyon

In the early afternoon we left the park, and headed into Utah, still on I 70. The Colorado Rocky-feel in the landscape began to change to a more desert-like feel. The views along the road were non-stop spectacular, but never the same. It was as though God didn't want to bore anyone traveling through the area, so He would change the color, height, or structure of the hills every few miles. Again we found rest stops that were just excuses to pull off the road and look and take pictures and look some more. We stopped for the night in Richfield, Utah, found a Super 8 and a fun restaurant restaurant right next door, R & R's Frontier Village, and had a nice anniversary dinner.

 

Just along the Utah roadside...Don't like it?

...Well, how about some rocks?

...Or maybe something like this?

...Or something like this?

There's a bunch of these around, too...

Darker?  Did you want darker?

Bigger, maybe?

This old thing?  Oh, just another rest stop...

* People Of A Certain Age

 

Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror. -Byrd Baggett

Next:

Cathedrals of Stone

THE TRIP – Day 5

Richfield, Utah – Hurricane, Utah
Kolob Canyons

157 miles

Seeing and “Resting”

THE TRIP – Day 3

Denver, Colorado – Grand Junction, Colorado

251 miles

I'm a very visual person. I love photographs. Google Images is my go-to site if I'm curious as to what something may look like. I've seen movies that had been filmed in the western part of this country and I've watched Ken Burn's excellent series on the National Parks. I've looked at professional photographs of mountains and landscapes from various parts of this country, but driving west from Denver through the Rockies on Interstate 70, heading toward Grand Junction, I was first struck by how photos and movies and visual images are unable to fully capture the vastness and beauty found in much of this country. The western landscape – the mountains, sky, lakes, rocks - are expansive in height, in texture, in depth, in color. I had expected to be amazed at what I would see along the road during this trip, but I don't think I was prepared for the just how much my senses would be engaged in the seeing. Though we did take many pictures wherever we went, we also spent time just looking – visually soaking in the amazing scenic beauty. I didn't close my eyes once the entire time I spent in the car for fear of missing something beautiful.

Dillon Reservoir, near Breckenridge, CO

Many rest areas on the interstates turned out to be “surprise adventures”. Such paved pull-offs are common throughout the country, but in the east, they are mainly places for long-distance drivers and truckers to take a nap or stretch their legs. In the west, they are often scenic viewing areas as well and great places to take photos (which will not begin to capture the view...). They are also places to just look and absorb the natural beauty. We spent some time at a pull-off outside of Breckenridge, overlooking Dillon Reservoir. After we took some photos, while we were looking at the blue of the sky reflected in the water dotted with pine-covered islands surrounded by the evergreen tree-lined snow-tipped mountains, a trucker pulled up in his rig and jumped out of the cab with a professional-looking camera and started taking photos of the view. He seemed happy and excited for this break, alternating between taking pictures and just looking. I wondered if this was a regular route for the trucker, and if he had pictures from pull-offs such as this from all over the country. Judging from his enthusiasm in the moment, I assumed that this perk of his job never got old.

View from rest stop near Dillon Reservoir

Farther down I 70, the interstate cut through Glenwood Canyon. The views along the road where impressive. We pulled off at a nearby rest area, this one indicating it had rest rooms, and found this stop to have hiking trails and a launching area for white water rafting on the Colorado River as well as the promised rest rooms, all set within a picturesque canyon. We watched the rafters take off on the river, then took a short hike down a canyon trail along a creek that flowed back into the Colorado. It was becoming apparent rest stops on this trip were more likely to be “surprise adventures” than quick 

breaks... 

I 70 entering Glenwood Canyon

Whitewater rafters in the Colorado River at the rest stop

Hiking trail along creek, Glenwood Canyon

More canyon...

 

The mountains are calling and I must go. - John Muir

Next:

The Old Married Couple Meet the Kissing Couple

THE TRIP – Day 4

Grand Junction, Colorado – Richfield, Utah
Colorado National Monument National Park

223 miles

Mountains' Majesty

THE TRIP – Day 2

Lincoln, Nebraska – Denver, Colorado

470 miles

We spent most of the day driving I 80 through the Platte River valley in southern Nebraska, another flat farming area for two-thirds of the state. Nebraska seemed a little like Iowa on steroids. Where Iowa was neat and compact in its farm fields, Nebraska was large and sprawling in its agriculture, as though the farms of the Midwest collided with the expanse of the West in Nebraska and suddenly every crop field exploded in size. Nebraska was also the first place we started seeing new nature – six-lined racerunners, cute little lizards with iridescent green stripes, magenta wildflowers I had never seen before. The Platte River was everywhere along the interstate, which was also lined with small, neat lakes, some looking like public parks, some like private waterfront residences. Though I had no intention of buying out-of-state licenses to fish on this trip, I couldn't resist picking up the state's fishing literature at the visitor center and found a pamphlet entitled “Fishing Across Nebraska: A guide to Public Fishing Lakes in the I 80 Corridor”. The cover showed a trucker, rod in hand, standing in a lake, with his rig parked close by. The first paragraph of the pamphlet read in part:

It's 455 miles across Nebraska on Interstate 80 – about seven hours if you obey the speed limit and don't make any stops. But that's a long time to sit in a car...you might want to do some fishing.

The pamphlet explained that those small lakes we had been seeing everywhere were “borrow pits”, holes dug in the valley to supply the sand and gravel for the construction of the interstate. Someone in the state's fisheries division had the wisdom to know the holes would easily fill with water due to the high water table in the Platte River Valley and provide fishing and recreational lakes. Fifty of them were eventually formed and forty of them have public access. Need a break from the road? Come and fish right off the interstate!

The farms of Nebraska eventually faded as we approached Colorado and were replaced by a hillier more barren landscape. I started looking for mountains. The mountains – the Rockies. My husband and I had never seen them in person. We've seen, and climbed, some of the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains, as well as traveled through most of the other east coast ranges, lovely, green hills, many with rock outcroppings. But the highest peak in the U.S. Rockies, Mt. Elbert at 14,440 feet, is almost three times higher than the venerable Mt. Marcy of the Adirondacks at 5,344 feet. I kept my eyes fixed on the western horizon as we left Nebraska and entered Colorado. About 60 miles outside of Denver, I spotted a low white line of strange looking clouds above the horizon. When they didn't move like clouds should, I realized I was looking at the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies. We spent the rest of the day, into sunset, chasing them. We checked into a hotel just north of Denver, grabbed something to eat, and then went looking for a west facing vantage point from which to watch the sun set over the Rockies. I showed my husband where we were on the map and where I thought we should head. He recognized the name of the town we were headed toward. What followed was the first of the trips many unplanned “surprise adventures”.

Anyone who knows my husband knows he is a vast storehouse of rock music knowledge (trivia?). The town he recognized was the location of a church pastored by Richie Furay, singer, songwriter and musician from Buffalo Springfield, The Souther, Hillman, Furay Band, and Poco. Richie had come to Boulder, Colorado, found God, and by the early 1980s was pastor of a Calvary Chapel in nearby Broomfield. We now found ourselves looking for a church as well as a mountain sunset. I'm very fond of locating random places in towns I've never been to before. I take it as a challenge. (No GPS, remember?) With an address and a glance at Google Maps, we found the small, simple church nestled in a residential neighborhood, with Richie Furay's name on the church sign. No sign of the pastor, of course, but these two groupies took a few pictures of the sign and the church and went on to see the sunset.

We found a clear quiet place on a hill on the west side of town, the sun just beyond the mountains, the snow on the peaks reflecting the pink of the sky. Though still a good way off, the Rockies were majestic in their breadth and height. We were finally in the mountains...

Colorado mountains, I can see your distant sky,

You're bringin' a tear of joy to my eye

- Richie Furay “Good Feeling to Know”

Next:

Seeing and “Resting”

THE TRIP – Day 3

Denver, Colorado – Grand Junction, Colorado

251 miles

Flatlanders on the Road

THE TRIP – Day 1

Antioch, Illinois to Lincoln, Nebraska

570 miles

Except for my undergraduate years in a college in the foothills of New York's Catskill Mountains, my life has been lived on flat land. I spent the first 18 years of my life on glacier-leveled Long Island, then various flat upstate New York cities, and the past 27 years years on the prairie of northern Illinois. The first day of the trip was mainly over familiar and previously traveled roads – mostly flat, with a few rolling hills in Iowa. (It was also the only part of the trip that would see any rain for three weeks.) We headed west across northern Illinois, crossed the Mississippi and entered Iowa, a route we had taken many times to visit our son during the five years he spent at the University of Iowa. We spent most of the day driving Interstate 80 through the familiar farm fields of Iowa.

Iowa is not without its charms. Green with early corn and soybeans and other crops, Iowa is an agricultural patchwork. Over 60% of Iowa's land is farmed, with another 30% used for pasture and hay. My son once quoted a statistic I'm unable to document, but believe it to be true: Iowa is the most developed state in the U.S., if developed is defined as “most changed from its original natural state”. Farm fields everywhere, to within several yards of the interstate, as far as the eye can see. Later on in the trip, after traveling hundreds of miles through states such as Nevada and Wyoming, land looking untouched since the beginning of time, I can easily believe the statistic about Iowa is true - most developed, but still pleasing to the eye. In the western part of the state, massive wind farms have taken over the farmlands, but even they have a certain performance art beauty to them, spinning in faux unison against the sky and the landscape. Still on I 80, we left Iowa and entered Nebraska, the first “new to us” state we encountered, and spent the night in Lincoln. Because of the excellent driving conditions (despite the 100 degree heat) we had ignored our daily mileage “guideline”, driving 570 miles the first day. This bought us some flex time which we planned to use a few days later when we were in the higher altitudes, far from the flatlands.

This is probably a good place to stop and thank the person who in part made this trip possible, or at least, pleasurable – President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He championed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 which planned and funded the construction of the interstate highway system in this country, now named for him. As a very young child on vacation in northern New Jersey, I remember a friend of my mother's took our family to a mountain overlooking the construction of a large road down below. She pointed to the road, said it was to be called Route 80, and that some day it would go all the way from New York to California. I remember thinking I was looking at something amazing. One road that would cross the country! I've spent a good deal of time since driving I 80 from New York through Iowa, and now, on this trip, I would travel parts of it in Nebraska, Utah, Nevada, and yes, California, as well. The interstate highway system, in general, is wonderful. Not always the most scenic route to take, it is, however, fast, safe, has great rest stops, and so far has maintained mostly good road surfaces. And in certain sections of the country, it is, indeed, very scenic.

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. – St. Augustine

Next:

Mountains' Majesty

THE TRIP – Day 2

Lincoln, Nebraska – Denver, Colorado

470 miles