Driving x 2

So again I have some catching up to do. From Kansas, I drove to Denver and Boulder (and having now driven through Colorado all I can say is wow they have a diverse landscape). Coming into Denver from the Kansas-esque eastern farmland, the Rocky Mountains loom and some how all the houses and people suddenly looked like they smacked against the mountains and settled. I mean if I was a settler coming west across the prairie and I came up against the Rockies I would probably say, “this is good…I don’t need to go over those.”

Except after a few days in Boulder and a night in Denver area, I began my trek over them. I took a very narrow, at times one lane close your eyes and hope no one is coming the other way road, but amazing road all the same. The switch back all the way up and often dipped in the direction of the sharp drop off the side of mountain with no guardrail.


Now all my driving has just reinforced my number one driving conundrum. I can’t turn my head and look at all the pretty scenery I am driving passed. And if I want to look or take a picture, I am like a jack-in-the-box popping out of my car at every turn. There’s no easy solution, but I have gotten pretty good at taking pictures while driving.

I ended up going over Independence pass and the Continental Divide. I have missed the smell of alpine air. And no comment on how bad this picture is – you can’t complain when you ask someone to take your picture. So that road dropped me into Aspen. I spent a few hours walking around. Wow trendy and I now understand what mountain chic is!

My next amazing drive was in the southeastern corner of Colorado along the Utah border. It wasn’t flat farms, or mountain alpine, but desert canyons. The road wound along the bottom of a canyon. At times the canyon closed in on the road and I felt like I was going to get squashed between two slabs of rock…or that some huge hunk of rock was going to decide to erode in a dramatic fashion.

I once read somewhere that canyon walls were mountains that stood knee deep in their own rubble. I don’t know why that has always stuck with me, but it is a very good description. That image definitely fits the drive into the Canyonlands National Park. It was so hard to get a picture when you can only take a narrow portion of a 360 degree panorama – very frustrating.



Also on the drive into the Canyonlands NP, is the Newspaper Rock. It is petroglyph panel etched in sandstone some time between late B.C. and 1300 AD. Pretty cool! And since no one knows what the images mean, we can make it up.


Now all these pretty drives were dented slightly, when I created my first road kill today. I have been so good swerving, stopping, or straddling critters. I have dodged hitting toads, a turtle, squirrels, deer, vultures, wild turkeys (boy are they dumb), a prairie dog, and a fox, but a little chipmunk didn’t make it today. And the cloud of butterflies I drove through don’t count, because some of them lived.

But I am now in Moab, UT and will be doing a massive national park tour for the next few days.

Gas (getting ridiculous):
Denver - $3.09
Aspen - $3.24
Moab - $3.15