DStilled

Rockies to Home

July 29, 2007 on 9:12 pm | In Blog |

Tuesday morning I woke up in the US for the first time in a week. Jeremy and I had veered slightly off the original course in order to see Yellowstone. I had been there before and knew a couple of things for him to see so a drive-thru was almost possible. The thing is, Yellowstone’s the second biggest national park in the contiguous country (behind the ever ridiculous Death Valley) and the roads kinda loop on themselves. So we saw Mammoth Hot Springs, Lake Yellowstone, the canyon with Yellowstone Falls, and Old Faithful. I only had to wait 30 minutes to see it this time. After about 5 hours we left and headed due south to see the Grand Tetons. I would say this was one of the coolest mountain ranges I had seen on the trip because of their crisp jagged peaks. But what made it ultimately worth is to go to Tetons was when we suddenly stopped in traffic. Jeremy had a good feeling about this stop and sure enough, I rolled down my window to ask someone what was going on. Right off the side of the road, a small black bear was eating a deer!!! We were all closer than the recommended distance and the fading light made pictures difficult, but I GOT TO SEE A BEAR!!! We decided to keep driving towards Denver instead of going through the whole park. This decision would haunt us the next morning when we realized we didn’t go through Idaho. So now I have 4 states I haven’t been to instead of just 3. What makes it even worse, I have ABSOLUTELY NO reason to go to Idaho independently. The Idaho, Oregon, Nevada corner is the largest non-roaded place in America–for a reason. We stopped at a KOA at dark and then watched Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within using my laptop and the car’s speakers. We also met a few people at the campsite that were from Cincinnati before we crashed.

Wednesday morning I woke up pretty early and we headed out on the road. Jeremy drove for the first time on the trip and he got a good helping of it too. He basically drove the entire hypotenuse of Wyoming and down into Colorado. Once we arrived at Estes Park we went into Rocky Mountain National Park. This was a very cool place with peaks in the 12, 13, and 14,000 ft range. We drove around a little bit but because it was raining we didn’t stay too long. After the curves increased, the altitude increased, and the rain increased, I wanted to drive. Call it control or whatever, but I know my car, tires, and brakes better than anyone and the conditions were far from ideal. That didn’t stop us from being slightly stupid outside the car. At the highest point on the road (12,100) we pulled off and figured we would run up the short path to the top of the mountain. After about 20 seconds of running we both died. The oxygen difference finally caught up with us. We slowly walked to the closer summit all the while tasting blood. Iron was getting in our lungs it was so bad. Jeremy turned blue and took almost 30 minutes to change back. I had some issues with coughing up croup but I think that had more to do with the fact that it was 40 degrees and sleeting than the oxygen. I used to get a little of that when I would go from a warm car to a cold cross-country course back in high school. Every 1000 ft vertically = 600 miles due north for temperature. So in the middle of Colorado, Jeremy and I were in the Arctic tundra. Trees don’t even grow that high. Anyway, we drove through Denver and towards Colorado Springs where we had another lovely KOA campsite available for us.

Thursday morning I woke up ready for the highest drive of my life. Colorado Springs has a ton of really cool things to do around it and we decided to get as much as possible in. First stop was Garden of the Gods. This is a red-rock garden with the two main pieces being a couple of hundred feet tall and wide. What made this awesome area so unique was that most all the rocks were very thin (relative to their size). We did some crevasse crawling and I pushed the legal envelope on one of them. It was wonderful. You can get permits to climb one of the over 300 routes they have but we didn’t have time or the gear. William, most of it was some of the coolest trad ever. After we finished exploring we drove to Pike’s Peak. It costs 10 bucks a person to drive up the mountain but is definitely worth it. Most of that money goes to road maintenance anyway. I’ve never driven on a road so steep and so windy that I actually couldn’t go fast even if I wanted. The record for the Pike’s Peak race is just over 10 minutes! It took us more like 40. You have to have balls of steel to cut some of those corners the way they do! They higher we got up the cooler it became and the shady temp at the top was 38. Good thing the sun had come out right as we reached the summit. At 14,110 ft, we were woozy for the first time on the trip. The oxygen is half up there as it is at sea level. The simple act of drinking makes you go too long between breaths! Both of us turned a little blue. We ate lunch at over 11,000 ft at the mandatory break inspection place. The limit for safe temp is 300 and mine was 156. The guy gave us an impressed affirmation and told us to keep it up. The lowest temp he had ever seen though was the ambient temp of the air. So I’m nothing TOO special. I made mushy spaghetti (because I didn’t know about the high altitude boiling rules) and we headed to our last stop of the day. My mom had simply raved about a place called Royal Gorge so we figured it was worth a stop. It was an hour away but we had time. We get there a little after 5 and see that it’s over $23 a person! We immediately pull off to discuss our options. I called my house to talk to my mom and see if it was worth the money that we didn’t really have and she was asleep. So my dad got online and read us the brochures and info about the place. As soon as I was about to say, “Let’s not do this,” Jeremy blurts out, “Alright! We’re doing it!” Turns out the 23 bucks covered a bunch of pretty cool things and the attraction wasn’t just the highest suspension bridge in the world. We took a 45 degree railway (world record) to the bottom of the gorge, a 2,200 ft single-span air tram (world record) , saw the highest skycoaster in the world, a wild-life area with a white buffalo among other things, and both walked and drove across the bridge. We drove to the edge of Colorado and spent the night in a motel, with two beds.

Friday morning I woke up ready for the longest drive of my life. We were on the road at 7 am mountain time, grabbed a quick bite to eat at McD’s, and celebrated Jeremy’s birthday. That’s a match in his biscuit in the picture. We went all the way to Kansas City before really taking a break and the only reason why we stopped there was we were only a few miles away from where Jeremy lived at ages 5 and 6. We saw his old apartment and elementary school. Turns out his kindergarten teacher is still there. We couldn’t get in (thanks Mr. Frowny Janitor) so Jeremy left a note. We were soon back on the road headed for Evansville, IN. The reason we stopped there was because Jeremy’s wife Karissa came and picked him up. She was in Owensboro already and she wanted to see him on his bday. Jeremy said it was the most unique birthday he’s ever had and will remember it forever. My gift was driving him 850 miles to his wife. It was now 10 pm central and I had 200 miles to go. Without a companion to dialogue with, I quickly faded mentally. I resorted to being stimulated physically. I got something to eat and danced to hip hop for nearly two hours. It worked and I rolled into home at 2 am eastern. I was plesantly surprised to see KY’s interstate speed limit had been changed to 70 and that all the road work done around my house was finished. I said hi to Ann and hit the sack after over a thousand mile day.

Saturday morning I woke up without anything to do or anywhere to go. It was actually depressing and sad. Even as I write this, the adventurous part of me that ran my life for the last six weeks is trying to take over. I may have become addicted to driving, who knows. It is one of my favorite things to do in the whole world and suddenly I don’t have anywhere to drive. The only thing keeping me sane is that I do have a list of things to do before I move. I just hope I don’t run out of things too soon. I thought I’d give you some random stats to summarize the trip. Final distance: 12,663 miles. Shortest driving day: 0 miles-San Jose. Longest driving day: 1058.3 miles-Last day. How far listened in Bible: Genesis to 1 Corinthians. Listened to most (non-Bible): Josh Groban-Awake. Favorite animal saw in wild: black bear. Most prolific animal: Raven. Coolest animal saw most: Bald eagle-7 times. Hardest thing I did: Sea kayak 13 miles/9 injured. Hottest temp: 116-Phoenix. Coldest: 38-Lake Louise (night)/Pike’s Peak (day). Highest elevation: 14,110 ft-Pike’s Peak. Most north latitude: 51.5 degrees-between Canada’s Glacier NP and Lake Louise. Most expensive night: $104-Flagstaff. Worst moment: Losing my wallet in LA. Best moment: no idea what that would be, entering Zion, surfing, laughing with Jeremy. Best drive: coming out of King’s Canyon. First glacier/snow: Yosemite. Most expensive car: Mercedes McClaren SLR-$615,291. Thing I wish I could’ve taken home most: Monolith red stone/aged sequoia. Coolest rock formation: Shipwreck rock-New Mexico. First time I honestly wished the trip would end: the last Wednesday of trip. Cheapest gas: $2.659-Evansville, IN. Most expensive gas: $1.199/liter-South of Calgary, AB. Number of national parks: 17. Cost of whole trip: $3000. Worth: Priceless. Number of pictures kept: 1700. Number of states/territories: 23. Number of countries: 3. Number of days: 41. Sounds like a pilgrimage to me. Thanks for joining me through reading these updates. It has really meant a lot that people cared about what I was doing.