Crossing the Rockies
Trip Start
Unknown
1
4
6
Trip End
Ongoing
Glenwood Springs, Colorado, United States
Monday, April 23, 2001
We had a conversation about our travels. He is planning to do the famous 4 corners of USA, basically driving from The State of Maine west to Washington State, south to San Diego, California and all the way across to Key West, Florida. I somewhat admired his spirit. He left before sunrise and I left about half an hour after him going west on I-80.
Historically this part of the USA was cowboys and Indians, buffalo and wagon trains. The wild wild west starts here and into the unknown the pioneers went. Some looking for land, some headed to San Francisco to join the gold rush, some just followed the crowd. Today, as I cut through the grassland that still sparsely covered with unmelted snow, I was overwhelmed by history and pride, and few drops of tears blurred my vision.
The traffic was almost nonexistent, so it was a pretty boring drive all the way until Denver. The higher I climbed, the more barren the vegetation changed. The moisture from the Pacific was all blocked off by the Rockies, so the grassland is yellow and dry.
It was only 1:00 pm when I arrived in Denver, so instead of stopping, I continued to drive westward, following I-70. The mountain road was amazingly beautiful, up and down with huge curves hugging the snow-capped mountains. It was hard on my car engine and breaks however; the pistons were pumping with limited oxygen and my speedometer read 50km/hour, that was as fast I could push my car. I was passed by these huge SUV's as they didn't seem to have any problems zig zag through the mountains.
After passing through the famous Eisenhower Tunnel about 100km west of Denver, the road begin to descend. I followed the turbulent Colorado River, as the spring melt was causing the river to rush flood levels. The highway was mostly cut in the middle of the cliff, quite a scenic drive all the way to Glenwood Springs. This was my night stop.
