Yep… we got the heck out of Dodge.
And there wasn’t really much to see in Dodge anyway. There was maybe one little museum? And boot hill cemetery? Something like that. But nothing that really caught our attention.
So, we settled for having Walmart flip my driver’s front tire around, so that the part of the tire that was on the inside was now on the outside.
I felt a lot better about that, Knowing that the good side of the tire was now going to be wearing down, in the bad side of the tire wouldn’t be wearing much at all in comparison.
🥳
And hey, I’d rather spend $11 to get another 5,000 mi out of a tire then to spend $100 for another tire.
So after we left Dodge City, we headed west and northwest. The road west across Kansas and Eastern Colorado was a more peaceful drive, I think. The speed limits were lower,, and there were lots of little small towns that we had to slow down for, but that was actually kind of nice. I-70 is just… Impersonal and barren across Kansas and Eastern Colorado, with nothing to look forward to, really, other than the towns on the map that sort of mark gas stops and what not.
But this little road had lots of little small towns to pass through, and once we got up into the foothills of the Rockies, the road started to be really beautiful.
It was a lot like driving the Alpine loop in Utah County around the back side of Mount timpanogos, except it was probably five times longer? So it was just this beautiful, winding, mountain road that would snake around and then switch back and just run through beautiful vistas.
Of course we arrived too early for much color change of the leaves on the trees, but it was still absolutely beautiful.
Some of the switchbacks looked down on narrow valleys with little rivers running through them that snaked around like a bunch of s’s hooked together.
Beautiful.
We stopped off at an absolutely beautiful lake view with gorgeous mountains in the background. It was just off the side of the highway, but I pulled over, and we took a few pictures.
Gorgeous.
We didn’t know it at first, but that particular road took us to the highest paved road of the continental divide. I think it was something like 12,100 ft or so above sea level, and there was a little parking lot at the top with a path leading to a Vista point. Both my mom and I walked the Vista point trail and enjoyed it, although it was a good bit nippy, and with the strong wind, was just plain cold. Cold enough that the wind made our inner ears so cold we got headaches.
But it was cool to be there.
Our destination was maroon bells, but we realized that there was a pretty good chance we wouldn’t make it to maroon bells before dark, so we just didn’t worry about it and decided to stop off to take pictures of beautiful vistas along the way.
It was quite enjoyable. 😊
Funny enough, we actually ended up making it to maroon bells just as the last of the light of the day was fading into tonight. And gratefully, because I forked over the money for a super expensive phone to have a good camera phone for my trip to New Zealand, I was also able to get some good pictures of maroon bells even in super low-light conditions.
That was cool. 🥳🙂
We ran into a, probably early 30 something woman who was traveling all around the United States taking photographs of beautiful places. We chatted with her for a good little while about what all she had been doing and where, and we talked about where we were headed for our little trip– Utah being our first real destination.
Anyway, from there, we had no qualms about driving right on through Aspen without stopping. We had to drive through most of it to get up to maroon bells, and then drive through the last a little bit of it to leave, and, honestly, well, you know me, I’m not much for places like that.
But it was a nice little drive from Aspen to i-70 West, and it wasn’t too far of a drive to get down from there to Grand junction, where we arrived I want to say something like around midnight and spent the night at another truck stop.
There were three truck stops to choose from. But the first one had signs saying that we couldn’t stay there, and the second one didn’t have any good places to park that seemed to make sense, so we went to the third one with welcoming of cars and anyone who wanted to stay the night, and we parked ET on one end of the parking lot and called it good.
That particular truck stop was right next to the freeway and also right next to a railroad. 😅
Good thing I have my noise maker and headphones to drown out the external noises, and my little beanie to block out the sunlight and lamp light.
With my noise maker and my beanie, I can actually sleep through to trains passing by, and all the truckers punching the gas to leave the parking lot right next to where we were parked.
I’m definitely grateful for that.
So… Tomorrow will be Utah. And Utah is… hard for me. But it will be great to see family, and it will be good to support my buddy who’s finally getting married for the first time in his 40s. Gives me a little hope that maybe that day might come for me as well.
🤞
Love and hugs.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 