CANYCA: California to New York (and back) pg. 10
Up to this point in the trip I had been very surprised as well as pleased to find that this heavy, bouncy, and orange baywesty was quite the trooper on interstates and hills. The engine ran cool as a cucumber, and I was able to maintain 65-70 mph up hills in a headwind with no real sense of strain. On the morning of September 22nd, however, I faced the Rocky Mountains, and after just five minutes of leaving the motel and getting on the freeway, I found myself leaning forward as if to assist the beleagured Volkswagen up that neverending incline which was I70: The Gateway to the Rockies. With a brief window of clear weather predicted before the next snowstorm, swiftness was an issue, for not only did we not have chains, but the folks at Penske preferred that we abstain from their use. As I slowly gained altitude up this sheer wall of mountains, the ghostly snow mist in the trees and jumbled boulders and white-rimed aspen beckoned to my sense of adventure: I could tell this was going to be an intense ride, freeway or not.
In fact, were it not a freeway, there would have been no passing of passes such as Loveland (11992'), or Vail (10666'). There would have been no plows, no guardrails, and no emergency vehicles attending to an accident scene on a cliffside. There would have been nothing but ice in fantastic shapes morphing the jagged edges of the impassive rock faces into the anonymity of snowfields 'twixt the somber sentinels of the deep forest, and the sound of the wind as it propels the spindrift into the very mists of time. There is no silence more profound; no stillness so deep as the breath of the void.....
But there I was, strapped into the seat of a straining Volkswagen which gasped for breath as I forced it to climb higher and higher still, debating inwardly over whether I should stop to advance the timing somewhat ... something didn't feel quite right! Yet I was still able to hold my own with the trucks and even pass a few. Descending the passes on those ice-encrusted roads had me hyper-alert for other reasons: Not only did I have my own traction and steerage issues, but something about the tone of the signs alerting truckers to the lengthy and steep grades had me checking behind me often for that anthropomorphized visage of the Killer Truck bearing down on me, out of control and wild, slavering and gibbering fiendishly as it relished crushing me beneath its icy tires. But it didn't actually get to that point. All the truckers were behaving well, and only a few numbnuts in their sedans and SUV's whizzed by at normal speed as if the road was not clean of slush and ice, but their own private speedway to boot. No wonder I was witness to several cars stuck fast in various ditches and plow-drifts, but also privvy to a scene from someone else's private hell as it developed: Looked like some unlucky travellers went over the edge! These scenes, and the tentative grip my tires had on the frequent uneven ice patches had me driving like the truckers. Slow, with extreme following distances maintained, and focused. 30-35 miles per hour, both up and down the steep bits. The mountain tunnels were something else, too!
These mountains were apparently rich in one ore or another: Gold, silver, copper ... I'm not sure, but the little mining towns flanked by mines nestled in crevices on either side of the highway gave the area an interesting element of the history of greed, but the nostalgic aspects of mines (both operational and decrepit), tailing piles that could be considered mountains themselves, and the general vibe of the hardworking maniacs of the past AND the present who bust their collective butts in pursuit of the dream of an easy life .... history is indeed fascinating, but mining should always be remembered as one of the most invasive, destructive, and toxic means of acquiring income.... After just the right amount of this winter mountain driving, we gradually descended into lighter and lighter shades of winter, and finally it was merely a richly developing autumnal forest in the mountains, the grey skies sullen yet, but more-or-less well-behaved. We swooped into a spectacle of towering and monumental cliffs of ochre earth and jagged rock festooned with tenacious foliage ... that would be Glenwood Canyon. The dreamy mists obsuring the upper ramparts only added to the intensity of the experience.
It seemed as though the passing of the Rockies indicated a milestone....a passing from one realm into another, this one dynamic, youthful, and jagged of aspect. Burlesque and chaotic hues of both earth and sky as well as hellishly sculpted forms of rock and tree heralded the transition from mountain to desert. East of the Rockies, the Great Plains, and falling off their western slopes: Desert. We were in the West!
So having survived the passes, we spent about an hour in Grand Junction, then hit the road westward at 1:35, destination: Green River, Utah, where we planned to rest the Penske and go gallivanting around eastern Utah in the bus for a bit of adventure!