The Rockies beckon

My August 2004 cross-country trip now takes me through Colorado. Onward...


Our stay in Salina, Utah was uneventful outside of weather which was interesting. It was humid as hell and there seemed to be heavy weather blowing in, a rainstorm that never happened but would have been welcome as far as I was concerned. I was happy just to sit in the comfort of our air conditioned room in my underwear watching The Olympics. Swimmers and gymnasts, swimmers and gymnasts. Good God, bring on the track and field already! At least I can understand a horse race. Well, I guess there's something there for everyone so vive la difference.

Utah isn't really my cup of tea. There's no denying the intrinsic beauty of the state, but I need greenery and there's little to be found here. I do remember being fascinated with Utah's rock formations on another cross country drive as a kid 40 years ago. Anything of a scientific nature interested me and I liked learning about geology. Such a long time ago, am I really that same person or have I molted my skin so many times that I've become unrecognizable? I still retain my childhood love of scientific endeavors so I guess there's something left of that little person here. But where did that world go? A world of Ipana toothpaste, Ed Sullivan, Sean Connery as James Bond, my favorite TV shows...The Outer limits and The Twilight Zone, The Beatles, TV dinners, the Vietnam War and the never healing wound of JFK's assasination. How distant and remote we seem to be from those times yet I can conjure them up instantly so perhaps they're not lost at all. See what happens when I recollect a childhood memory? I have to make a huge thing about where time goes and why can't we get it back? Anyway...Utah. I don't want to live there unless they bring back the multiple wives thing. And I need someplace that's got a touch of the Old World to it and this isn't the place. I hope they don't take it personally, I've different tastes these days.

I ended up going to bed around 11:00 PM, thankful that we made so much mileage on almost zero sleep from the day before. Any sleep we do get tonight will be far more than we had the previous night, bring it on.

I awoke at 2:45AM and decided to hit the road. After packing up the car and checking out we managed to get going at 3:20, heading for Green River and the Colorado border that followed. When we made the border of Colorado I was pleasantly reminded why John Denver liked it here. The terrain was gorgeous. Trees, grass and flowing streams, This is more like it! It was a touch cooler too, no problem there. About 20 miles into the state I stopped for breakfast at a town called Parachute, yes, Parachute, Colorado. I had my usual sausage and eggs at Outlaws Restaurant and shared the leftovers once again with my big furry friend. I made it my goal to at least make it over the border to Kansas so we had to get going. We pressed onward and soon got into even greener and more magnificent terrain. I can see why people love Colorado, it has so much to offer in the way of natural beauty. I can honestly say that I wouldn't mind living there which is saying alot because I naturally tend to favor older cultures over newer western ones. But Colorado is beautiful enough to overcome such quibbles.

I remember gazing wistfully at the exit sign off of I70 for Aspen, I had been talking to a gal I knew who was a costumer for a theatre company the week earlier and even though she was working on a show there in Aspen and even though she was heading into dress rehearsal week she still wanted to find some time where we could meet up in Aspen and have lunch. I nixed the idea as I really needed to get going and besides, I had Jackson with me and trying to eat fast so I could get him out of the car didn't seem too appealing. So I drove right on by the Aspen exit, we'll get together in NYC one of these days. We stopped for gas a little beyond the Vale Summit and while there at the gas station I walked Jackson around a bit. He got to wade into the nice clear water of the Colorado River which was flowing right behind the gas station where we were at. He waded around and drank from the flowing water which was barely a foot deep at its deepest point here. Just good enough to get one's feet wet. We set out for Denver, hoping to make good enough time to reach Kansas. It took about 20 minutes to get through most of Denver, big city that it is. We emergered on the eastern side of Denver and something amazing happened within 5 miles of the outskirts. The landscape changed dramatically, gone were the mountains, trees and streams. Now there were just grassy fields stretching to infinity. What the hell is up with this? We had another 135 miles to Kansas, why was it starting so early? Would I be able to take the infinite boredom of watching these endlessly empty fields for the next 350 miles? Jeeeeeeeesus.

We traverssed 15 miles into Kansas to a town called Goodland, Kansas. We'd journeyed 649 miles on our second leg, a good day. Oh Christ, I'm in Kansas. *sigh*

I was driving across the burning desert...

This is the third installment of my cross-country trip from August of 2004. I'm still negotiating the Old West and enjoying the scenery.

The Nevada desert flies on by me as Las Vegas recedes into my rear view mirror. At the time I was thinking of a Joni Mitchell song called "Amelia" where she says...

"I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Amelia it was just a false alarm."

Always liked that song, and now I couldn't get it out of my head. Onward Joni...


I was getting hungry so I noticed a small town coming up and decided to get some breakfast there. It was about 7:30AM so it was time for a break. I stopped at a tiny speck of a town called Glendale, Nevada and cruised into a no-name diner on a sparsely habited main drag. I had my usual, sausage and eggs, over hard. Jackson hungrily devoured the leftovers and we took some time for him to stretch his legs.

After eating I was now getting another case of the nods, (what a surprise) and I scanned the horizon for a good place to pull over so I could snooze. There wasn't anything appealing, just acres of scrub brush extending to the distant hills and not a single structure, a solitary tree that had some shade where I could park the car. Very well. I would park out in the open at the first turnoff I saw which I did. It was next to one of those solitary gas stations that one sees in the movies. So I parked, rolled down the windows and actually snoozed for about 20 minutes out in the middle of the baking desert. I woke up and quickly got going after checking on Jackson, this heat had to be hard on him and I doted on him constanly. What a crappy time to travel, when it's just just God-awful stinkin' heat everywhere.


There were high clouds so it was a kind of hazy heat that kept us company all the way to the Arizona border. This was a tiny slice of Arizona, perhaps 30 miles, but the landscape was little different than Nevada and it was strange to be in this state again after so many years. I left Arizona many years ago because I hated the heat, I was leaving it now for other reasons but I was still glad it was behind me. Welcome to Utah.

The landscape now began to change. There was still scrub brush but now instead of long expanses of desert stretching to distant mountains there was a sculptor's delight of mesa and buttes all colored with oranges, reds and purples. It's funny, but while I appreciate the intrinsic beauty of the landscape before me I still wanted to dispense with all this heat. Perhaps if I traveled through here in fall or winter I'd take more time with it all. I'm sorry folks, but the heat doesn't thrill me and if I can get the hell out of it fast, I will. The rest of this first day's drive, the first leg of four, ended midway into the center of Utah in a place called Salina. I was going to press onward to the Colorado border but I only had about 1/3 of a tank of gas and the sign on the freeway warned me of "No services for 108 miles". I wasn't going to take the chance so I turned back in the median and stopped at the truck stop where several motels and restaurants beckoned. The heat was oppressive, well over 90 degrees in the car and I needed to get Jackson out of this dreck. I checked into the Super 8 Motel and vegged out in an air conditioned room with my big furry friend. This was a great first day's drive, 632 miles and no mishaps despite the total lack of sleep for the preceeding 36 hours.

This is where 15N ends for me and Interstate 70 begins, not a bad first day's drive. I 70 would take me clear across the midsection of the country all the way to Columbus, Ohio. No maps required from this point on.

continued later...

The desert and beyond

This is the second installment of my cross-country trip from California to Columbus, Ohio. Come journey back in time with me to August of 2004. It's hot, overpowering heat, so we journeyed in the very early morning.

I had a bit of a rough start. As I was saying I'd made it past L.A. and now was heading for Las Vegas on Highway 15. Only one problem...I was falling asleep at the wheel. I mean the really scary ones where you doze off for one or two seconds and wake up with a start. So a few miles short of Barstow I pull over to a truck stop and attempt to snooze in the front seat. With my butt still in the driver's seat I fall to my right and bury my face into my overnight bag which is occupying the passenger seat. I look at my watch and see that it's 2:20AM then with the blink of an eye it's 3:05. Did I really sleep for 45 minutes? I seemed to feel better so I took off again not really aware what the speed limit was. I was reminded that I was going too fast by one of those automatic speed sensors that tells you to slow down, so I did. Slow down, I mean. To about 45 miles per hour as I didn't want to get tagged now. I reached way over to the passenger footwell to grab a Coke out of the ice chest thinking that the caffeine boost would really help me out here. That nice cold drink felt good and just as I was getting intent on making up for lost time I saw the flashing lights in my rear view mirror urging me to pull over. What could they want? I don't think I'm speeding or anything. So I pull over and my local California Highway Patrol officer appears outside my passenger window. I roll it down and I tell him that I'm totally awake. He tells me he doubts that as I was going 45 mph and was weaving. Actually, the whole reason I was weaving was because I was reaching down for that blasted Coke but I didn't tell him that. He urged me to go to the next rest stop and sleep so I gratefully complied, all too happy that I didn't get a ticket.

I pulled into the rest stop which was a huge lighted parking lot. It was just me and another RV occupying the premises so I got a blanket and a pillow and laid down on the ground outside the car. This is stupid. I just woke up from a short nap and now here I am wasting time trying to sleep again. Pointless. But I figure I'll stay here long enough to let that CHP officer get far enough down the road so I can sneak out of here. So I'm laying there on the blanket next to Jackson when I see the headlights of another vehicle pull into the rest area. After a few seconds I can see that it's a cop car. Is that CHP guy checking up on me? Turns out it's the Barstow Police and he just wanted to warn me about sleeping in the open like that as I could could get robbed. Then he saw that I had a big intimidating looking dog with me and he changed his mind.I thanked him for doing a great job all the while thinking that I must be some kind of cop magnet. Can't I just get out of California without getting ticketed by one of these guys? Just this time? The cop said goodnight and drove away and I got back into the car and once again attempted to make up for lost time.

This part of the drive to Vegas was strange as it was dark so there wasn't much to see but driving at night was imperative as it was cooler and much more comfortable for man (me) and beast (Jackson). At least I had the pleasure of one milestone...I finally crossed the border into Nevada. Goodbye California. Dawn was a glimmer and I knew I was close to Las Vegas. The lights of Vegas shone into the clouds over the horizon, well before you reach the city. I stopped there for gas and immediately got back in to make use of the waning morning. I wanted to stop driving before the hottest time of day arrived but sometimes I broke my own rule and just kept going.

*to be continued...*

My cross-country journey...revisited

I thought it would be fun to recount the move I made from California to Columbus, Ohio in August of 2004. I kept a journal and even though it's late in arriving, it's always worth a read. The trip was amazing, seeing America again from the driver's seat of my car was eye opening and in some ways, inspiring.

I spent all of Friday from 5:45AM preparing for the movers and then packing everything up into the moving van. This consisted of two parts...loading everything in my storage unit then heading to the house and packing up what consisted of a one bedroom apartment. This took me to about 4:00PM. I then spent the next 5 hours cleaning the house, steam cleaning the carpets, scouring out the bathroom, mopping the floors and taking care of little loose ends. I was going to leave three sand dollars that I kept on the kitchen window sill for the next occupant but at the last minute changed my mind and stuck them in my glove box. I'd find a place for them in Ohio. I thought I'd take a quick walk-through just to be sure I had everything. I went in to the bedroom, opened the mirrored closet doors and discovered that the movers had failed to pack a bunch of stuff, to whit: two violins and their cases, three boxes of my papers and a dufflebag. I let out a howl "OHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" that they probably could hear all the way to Bakersfield. My car was nearly jam packed, where would I put all this stuff? I did some creative packing not unlike figuring out a jig-saw puzzle and somehow managed to fit these items in as well as Jackson's food and water dishes. Needless to say, the car was jam packed to the point of almost being uncomfortable but it somehow got done.

It was now 10:30PM. I was physically exhausted but I piled Jackson into the car and took off down Hollywood Blvd. for the last time. On the way out Victoria Avenue I stopped at a little park where I would take Jackson every night for his bedtime pee-pee. I don't know if this little park by the harbor had a name but I always told Jackson that I was taking him to The Green Place, I guess because everything else around there was either sand or concrete so going somewhere green was a little special. We had a routine that I found kind of fun, I would always take Jackson there at around 11:10 and by the time we'd get there it was 11:20. After going a few times I noticed that the sprinklers would come on at 11:25PM and one little piece of the park would get watered for exactly ten minutes, then the next section would get watered until all four segments of the park were watered. I loved watching Jackson as the first sprinklers came on because he would be shocked to hear the hissing and spitting sounds of the sprinkler nozzles. Sometimes he'd get caught out in the grass as the next series of sprinklers would come on and he'd have to run for cover. I'd warn him...but would he listen? Well, sometimes. It was this place I took Jackson to after we'd locked up the house. One last time at The Green Place for old times sake. We were a bit early for the sprinklers but that was alright. Jackson dutifully sniffed about and even left a nice little treasure for whoever might discover it. After having picked up for him religiously for nearly two years, I decided to leave his tribute alone just this once. I figured it was Jackson's offering to the dog gods, who am I to interfere with a holy offering?

We trotted back to the car and set off for points east, me sighing as I realized what a huge drive this was going to be. I looked down at the odometer set to zero and shook my head, such a long way to go. I muttered under my breath the hackneyed old saw of "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"...
So down Pacific Coast Highway we go, heading for Malibu then Santa Monica where we would hook up to 10E then eventually connect with 15N which would take us to Las Vegas. I remember being annoyed that I had to go through L.A. and even when we'd passed it the traffic still seemed tres' Angeleno. I was happy to finally get on Highway 15 and watch the landscape change from urban to arid.

*more to come*