Still...
Sunday July 23rd....around 10:30pm MDT
We had long since abandoned the plan to check out a local Denver brewpub and instead headed up into the mountains west of Denver with nary a pause. It was dark so most of the scenery was lost to us. I had been this way a few times, at least as far west as Vail, so I had a good idea of what we were missing. The increase in elevation and the setting of the sun started a good trend towards cooling the car down. Our friend TClog, whose internal thermostat seems stuck, was still hot, but it wasn't quite so bad as before and the windows made their slow journey to closed. Ahhh, relative silence. Up and over the pass at the Eisenhower Tunnel (now cruising west on I70, having left I76 where it ends in Denver) and then up and over Vail pass before heading into uncharted territory for all of us. It was dark, so a real grasp of the scenery was impossible, plus it was getting late. TClog was asleep pretty consistently, if not substantially, and mostly what you could see was dark looming forms on either side of the car. We switched drivers about midnight, with me continuing our journey into western Colorado on the graveyard shift (nothing 32oz of Dr. Pepper can't overcome).
Both and Dan and TClog slept some through the three hours I wound slowly through Glenwood Canyon and on into the 3 o'clock hour. Still dark and so still little to see, though the road seemed to be doing some pretty interesting things, particularly where the east and westbound lanes were relative to one another. Otherwise mighty uneventful. 3:00am MDT found us in eastern Utah, I think, having given Colorado a bawdy send off. It was nearly impossible to get any sense of what the geography of Utah was at that point since it was pitch black outside of 100 feet from the highway. Drivers switched and Dan now back in command as we headed down our last stretch of interstate before venturing off into the wilds (state and local roads). I got a couple minutes of sleep through here, though I learned that while I can sleep like crazy on planes and trains, I'm not too good at sleeping in cars.
At the turn-off of the interstate we stopped at a rest stop and took care of some business (some more than others). It was crisp and somewhat cool for the first time in a while and brought a bit of life back into all of us. Back onto the road, this time UT72, for the last 100 miles to Escalante. The first hour was generally uneventful though the road seemed to offer a fair amount of interesting twists and turns. It was still dark, so our sense of the place was pretty limited. It was at about this time however that TClog was struck with the beginnings of some sort of illness. Basically he just didn't feel right, stopped or going, and we weren't quite sure why. Relatively quickly we surmised that perhaps the altitude had something to do with it, though further reflection would downplay that factor. We'd been driving for 24 hours with little sleep and totally out of any sort of routine in less than ideal circumstances and that plays hell with ones health. Leave it at that for now.
Dawn crept upon us as we made our way down to the junction of UT72 with UT18. We were lucky to find an open gas station bathroom for TClog who spent some time making himself feel better. Dan and I were in pretty good shape though anxious to be through with this leg of the journey. Back on the road the morning sun revealed some fairly dramatic red sandstone landscape features all around. We were headed east for the first time, through some small towns in central Utah, all principally built around agriculture. UT18 ran headed off towards Capitol Reef National Park and Arches National Park but we turned south onto UT24, the last highway on our long journey. The landscape continued to get more interesting as the sun continued to rise and ultimately we found ourself in Dixie National Forest, gaining elevation and afforded dramatic views of the surrounded countryside. TClog wasn't doing too hot though even still he managed to see our only elk (back on UT72) and saw as many cattle and mule deer as anyone through the entire trip south from I70. Thankfully the wildlife kept to themselves, and off the road, as we enjoyed the final miles on the outbound leg of our trip. Around every turn seemed to be some dramatic vista, and the park service had built several scenic overlooks with information displays for our edification.
At last we emerged from the Dixie National Forest in the town of Boulder, Utah, the last town we would encounter before reaching Escalante. Utah held another surprise however as the road connecting Boulder with Escalante makes its way around, through and ultimately over some very dramatic roadway, culminating in something called the Hog's Back. The Hog's Back at it's worst is built along the ridge of a large piece of sandstone, with sheer drops on wither side of the asphalt. At it's best it hangs precariously onto the side of the sandstone with almost nothing between you and a fall of several hundreds of feet. In only a few cases did they deem it necessary to put up Jersey barriers and how they determined that the areas protected were more hazardous than the areas they chose not to protect remains a great mystery. Dan was driving and taking his responsibilities quite seriously, possibly leaving his fingers imprinted in the steering wheel. TClog rode shotgun no doubt fretting about any number of horrible things happening to his vehicle, particularly as piloted by Dan. (TClog had been dozing off regularly through most of the time he wasn't driving only to wake up with a fresh set of driving instructions for Dan. For me he just kept one eye on the spedometer) But on the Hog's Back he was quiet. I was in the back seat with the video camera catching every great minute of the trip down.
We dropped down into a gorge of sorts, crossed the Escalante River (our true goal on this trip) and climbed back up and over another large chunk of sandstone, passing Kiva Koffee before cresting the hill and heading at last down into the valley where sits the town of Escalante. The last few miles found us admiring the 50 Mile Cliffs that runs east to west south of town and forms the first of the steps of the Grand Staircase, cruising through town looking for possible breakfast places and other civilized endeavors, before ending up at the BLM (Bureau of Land Management - the part of the Department of the Interior that manages National Monuments) headquarters (newly built and not remotely white) where we planned to register our trip and get some advice. Time now about 8:00am MDT.
More coming soon.....
(no pictures of this leg by me)
6 comments:
Funny account of Cory's watchful eye on you two drivers. That road sounds pretty wild.
It must have been fairly suspenseful waiting for the sun to light up the world for you guys. The 'looming dark forms' and such... Very exciting.
To this section I would only add that I was piloting us through & out of Denver-a heck of a thing to do for the very first time after being up for 18 hours or so. The road was wild, traffic around me was fast (hell, everyone else was used to it), and it was everything I could do to maintain a concentration while withstanding Dickhead's regular, half-awake warnings about speed, curves, and his lack of registration.
The registration comment actually only surfaced on the way home, and was possibly an arrow of bullshit pulled from an empty quiver. He had to have some document that indicated his ownership, otherwise we wouldn't have been driving that car.
I will take the dickhead comment from you, and I will return to you a compliment. Dan did a very good job of driving through the dark, mountains, and skinny roads. For a man who has prisims for glasses or for a man you has perfect vision, he did well. Thanks Dan for doing a lot of the driving and keeping us safe!
Welcome to the fold.
Very big of you.
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