11th,12th and 13th July 2009 – The Canyons, the Rockies, and the High Plains

East to Denver

I15 out of Las Vegas cuts across the North-West corner of Arizona, from Mesquite in Nevada to St. George in Utah. For most of this journey, it runs through the Virgin River Gorge (not 'canyon', as I would have expected), which is awe-inspiring, not to say hair-raising. I suddenly noticed/felt the hairs on my arms standing on end. I don't think it was the air-conditioning, I think I was a bit frightened.

This is the most expensive bit of road in America. It crosses and re-crosses the river a number of times. And you drive at high speed just beside the rocks

It's not the Grand Canyon, but it will do for me. If you want to better the experience of driving through the Virgin Gorge, I think you'd have to fly through the Grand Canyon.

I stopped at Cedar City (in Utah) for brunch, at the "All-American Classic Diner". It was good and clean with a very talkative young waitress, but it wasn't railcar-shaped with seats at a counter, so it didn't literally live up to its name.

Cedar City was holding its "July Jamboree", without telling Dulcie. The main street was shut to traffic. So I parked up to have a look. They had all the usual stuff, but they also had a vintage car 'concours d'elegance', which was really terrific. There were all the usual 'muscle' cars, and 50's saloons, but there were also a few Model-T's, and some Model-A's: very entertaining.

Sixty miles north of Cedar City, I finally turned east onto I70. Through canyon after canyon, with mountains towering above.

It was quite dark by the time I reached my chosen Rest Area, so I really had no idea where I was.

The Interstate highways are all marked with mile-posts. The exits are not numbered consecutively, but by the mile they are in, so I only have to remember which mile I'm after, and watch the mile-posts to find my destination.

I try to avoid night-time driving, mainly because I want to see where I'm going. Three two-hour stints are quite enough for me nowadays. This, however, is a long slog across to Kansas City, which is going to take at least three days, so I try to press it a bit.

The rest Area has its usual complement of 'semi's' (they say sem-eye) with their compressors running, so I am up fairly early. The restroom has loo-paper and hot water, which quite impressed me.

Then I had a chance to look around. It really is quite unusual scenery:

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When I look at the maps, I find I've been parked right next to Moab. Moab is next to the Arches National Park. It also claims to be the mountain-bike capital of the world, although I'm not sure what that means, or how you get to be it.

I'm torn: a bit like Las Vegas, I ought to have a look. But I can't waste time on mere scenery, I have a mission to fulfil.

So I compromise. I will look, but I won't touch. I can drive the thirty miles down to Moab, and drive up-and-down the main street. It's not as daft as it sounds, because I can then take county road 128 back west to rejoin I70, and it won't be too much of a detour.

It turns out, and I didn't know this, that 128 runs along the Colorado River, along the side of the Arches. Here are three thousand words to describe three little bits of it:

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I70 then took me into Colorado and to Fruita for lunch. The detour left me with the tank-meter registering 389 miles. I had had the empty light on for forty miles, and the needle really was on empty. I'm getting around 22 mpg (US gallons, that is), and the book says it holds 19.8 (US) gallons. But the light and the needle make me nervous. The gas station in Fruita is shut down, with a sign pointing me at one another six miles on. In the event, it only takes 17+ gallons, so I probably still had 40 miles in the tank. The obvious solution is to buy an emergency can then deliberately run out: then I'll know.

I70 follows the Colorado River through canyon after canyon. It looks terrific. The scenery, that is, not I70. (As it happens, I find well-designed roads quite beautiful. It's the economy exercised in engineering them: they always follow the smoothest curves, cut the least earth, and so on.) But I70 is very expensively engineered here, as you can imagine. The river looks good from the road, but I'm not sure a sodding great Interstate pinned to the canyon walls will look too good from the river.

We come charging round one bend to find a repair van parked on the verge, all lit up. There is a worker in Hi-Vi clothes kind-of on the road, pointing furiously at the middle. Just in time, I see a great hole has appeared on the edge of my lane. I manage to swerve and track over either side of it. Round the next bend are a number of cars on the verge. I see, as we charge by, that they all have flat tyres.

I70 then follows the Eagle River up through Vail, to over 11,000 feet, and through the Eisenhower tunnel across the Continental Divide.

Then it's forty miles of traffic jam into Denver. This gives me time to notice that the rivers are now flowing my way. There are lots of signs indicating "ski" things, but there is very little snow.

Denver

Denver is still over 5000 feet up. They call it the "Mile-High City". Downtown, all the parking signs say (along with their regular message) "No Parking 2am – 6am". So it's one of those 'clean' cities. No overnight on-street parking. It doesn't look like there's much to do in the spots I visit, anyway, so it's out with the "Rvers' Guide" and the Walmart atlas. I finally settle on a Walmart close to where I left I70. It has a lot of big hotels around it, so there will be something to do of an evening. And Walmart presents the opportunity to park a long way from the Semi's.

As I stroll off towards the hotels for my evening constitutional, I spot a small bar sitting out among the interstate junctions. It does draft ales. The barman insists on introducing me to everyone (it was obviously wise to keep my Scottish accent all these years).

In fact, I think the barman falls in love with me: "It's dusk", he says, "come outside and watch the sun set". I mumble something about not having been properly introduced, but he drags me out anyway.

Denver, it turns out, is about the mountains at dusk. They're to the West, you see. It's a bit like the Western Isles in Scotland.

If he hadn't been a big, strong tattooed lad, I'd have asked him about his mother

All the Way Across Kansas in One

I have another early start, compliments of the car park cleaners. I think to myself that, starting this early, I could make Kansas City by nightfall. In three hours, I'm in Oakley, in the middle of Western Kansas. Public Radio becomes the "High Plains Public Radio": so I become a 'High Plains Drifter'.

I stop at a motel which advertises its restaurant. A rather strange German tells me that "we don't have breakfast here. You should have had it at your own motel before you left". He is obviously offended by something he imagines I've done. I punish him by leaving him with his imaginings, and find a truck stop on the other side of town.

Then it's off to see if I can manage another three-hour stint. Kansas seemed to consist, so far, of cornfields and grain elevators: and the odd tree. Like Montana, some of the fields were circular. Now, just like western North Dakota, it's 'nodding donkeys'. They even have, at Victoria, a Cathedral.

Then, suddenly, the whole landscape is full of those awful, alien wind turbines: mile after mile of them. The economic downturn reconstruction money is making Kansas the wind turbine capital of the world.

When the three hours is up, I find myself in Abeline. Couldn't miss a name like that, could I? The nice lady at the visitors centre tells me where to find WiFi at the Public Library, which allows me to book a hotel in Kansas City.

In fact, I book two hotels: night one in the suburbs, night two in town. By the way, Kansas City is not just in Missouri, it's also in Kansas. The state line goes north-south through the middle of it. So I am going to spend a night in Kansas.

Later That Night, in Kansas City

I ask Google what the local night life is like. I get offered the "Fox and Hound" (sic), which claims to be an "English Pub", and "Hooters", which doesn't. So Hooters it is, then.

The local High School football team is in. American football teams have about fifty players. Fortunately, not being twenty-one, they are all on sodas.

They're here because it's "Hooters": although their trademark is an owl, this a pun, because, in American (vulgar) "hooters" are ladies bits. Think vintage car horns and you'll see the derivation. The lady staff are clearly hired for their visible talents. They sell several draft ales, and cook chicken wings and onion rings by the ton.

There is a fun baseballfest on the television, called the "Home Run Derby". Tomorrow is the big All-stars game, where an American League Select plays a National League Select, and tonight is a fun session where they have old players, and softball pitchers and movie stars in some kind of home-run competition. It looked like everyone was having a really good time. I must try to watch the game tomorrow.