Day 10: A warm day in a warm city

It’s no coincidence that Denver not only has the highest educated per-capita ratio, but it’s also the thinnest and healthiest city in the USA. And what a lovely city it is. 5280 feet above sea-level, it’s known as the mile-high-city, even though it stands at the foot of those amazing mountain ranges we’d driven through before. Sweet smelling streets, more sunshine than any other place (300 days/year). Every corner was a cosmopolitan coffee-shop or bar. The centre of the city is semi-pedestrianised, and they have a rather enlightened public transport system - a free bus serves every single block of the main high street, the 16th Street Mall. Later in the afternoon we went to see ‘Gladiator’ at the cinema. Without spoiling the plot, all I’ll say is that while it’s a good bit of work, it’s like the first 20 minutes of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ most of the way through. In the evening, we went for a small drink, and slept soundly for the last night in a city to which I would love to return.

Day 11: Flying back

We arrived at Denver airport, the largest airport in the world a little early, but at least this got us some good seats (hint for the tall traveller…exit row). The airport covers 155 square miles, and is built far enough from the city to allow it and the city to expand all it wants without problem. Although it’s huge, there is little to do apart from eat. Fortunately, they had some free Internet Terminals. I checked my mail to find about 101 warnings about the “love-bug” virus which I never even got sent! At last we boarded the plane and as we rose into the sky the incredible agricultural landscape opened up below us. Last time round when we flew from Minneapolis, fields were perfect squares. This time, they seemed to farm in circles. Looking like some sort of pie chart, some fields had as many as six distinct colours; I couldn’t tell whether they were soil or crop. But this went on for as far as we could see, until we bumped our way into the clouds. An uneventful change at Chicago for our final destination, Gatwick. You know, although I always enjoy going away, one of the best parts about going away is coming back to a country which knows what I mean what I ask for a cup of tea.

Costings

5 days rental Buick: £129 all in
2 days rental Plymouth: £79
Airfares: £180 (included travel voucher of £378 from last year)
Fuel: £50
Daily Expenses (motels, food, fun): £40×11 = £440
Insurance: £56
Total, all in: £884 (and that’s a generous estimate!) / 2 = £442
So that’s an 11 day trip, covering 6 states, 7 major cities, two continents, two countries and 2170 miles for £442 each. At the time of going, that’s the same as a would have been paid by a Brit to sit and eat chips by a pool on an “all-in” package to Spain. Not bad, methinks! Oh, and I haven’t finished with the place yet……

Further links and reading

Before flying out, and in compiling this, I referred to many guides and sites. One of the most descriptive was the Rough Guide site. Anyone familiar with the Rough Guide books will find the complete text of many cities here, plus photos and more. For some top links, excellent maps, and stats about cities, travel.yahoo.com is a good bet.

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We collected the second car, a little Plymouth Neon. Not quite up to par with the previous Buick, but within budget. And so, for the third time, we saw the stretch of road heading north out of Vegas towards Utah.

Utah: pop (1995e) 1 957 000; area 219 880 sq km/84 899 sq mi. State in W USA, divided into 29 counties; the ‘Beehive State’; first white exploration by the Spanish, 1540; acquired by the USA through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848; arrival of the Mormons, 1847; Utah Territory organized, 1850; several petitions for statehood denied because of the Mormons’ practice of polygamy; antagonism between Mormon Church and Federal law over this issue led to the ‘Utah War’, 1857-8; joined the Union as the 45th state, 1896; capital, Salt Lake City; other chief cities, Provo and Ogden; rivers include the Colorado and Green; contains the Great Salt Lake in the NW, the largest salt-water lake in the country (2590 sq km/1000 sq mi); L Utah is a freshwater lake S of Great Salt Lake; the Wasatch Range, part of the Rocky Mts, runs N-S through the state; the Uinta Mts in the NE; highest point, Kings Peak (4123 m/13 527 ft); mountainous and sparsely inhabited E region dissected by deep canyons; major cities (containing four-fifths of the population) lie along W foothills of the Wasatch Range; the Great Basin further W; the arid Great Salt Lake Desert in the NW; cattle, sheep, poultry, hay, wheat, barley, sugar-beet; copper, petroleum, coal; aerospace research, machinery, transportation equipment, electronic components, fabricated metals, processed foods; tourism (Arches, Bryce Canyon, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Zion National Park).

Day 7: From Vegas, Nevada, to Richfield, Utah

Heading back out of Vegas having swapped the rental cars, we soon found ourselves cutting through deep, deep gorges. I

wanted to take a picture of every rock and mountain we saw. With every turn, the views became more breathtaking than before. We met a tourist while gasping in awe at an amazing view. If you’re looking at the picture and would like some idea of scale, you see those tiny dots on the road? Those are 60 foot long trucks. Until you are actually standing there, you will never have any idea of the scale of things. This scenery went on until dusk, when we chanced upon Richfield, Utah. A typical Mormon style town, the road was so wide, it took a good 5 minutes to walk across! Everything happened on the main street through town, which is where we found our room for the night - a $30 motel in the “rough” area of town. By rough, in this case, I mean that the police had pulled someone over for speeding. People were just going about being their good God-fearing selves, wearing dungarees, and having a high percentage of illiteracy.

Day 8: Sand to snow: Sandstone Arches and a stay at Glenwood Springs

Our intention was to rise early, but this went by the wayside. Instead, we hung out in a launderette and ate muffins and drank coffee while our dirty clothes went round and round and round on their magical journey toward being clean clothes. Although when I say “hung out”, perhaps I mean “tumble-dried”. Continuing on, we came across Kolab Canyons National Park. Fortunately, we decided not to spend our $10 there, and instead later came across the spectacular ‘Arches National Park‘. If you go here, go for the whole day. And not in the middle of summer. When we went, it was pleasantly mid-80’s, but in the height of summer, it tops 100 degrees. There are lots of walks to be had, and this is where the best sights are to be seen. The geological makeup is mainly sandstone, and as millions of years of wind blow through them, spectacular formations are carved out. In fact,this leads me nicely to a pun; it really is a spectacle to behold! Apparently, this park has the greatest collection of sandstone arches in the world. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, we were about to stumble upon the most famous arch of all, and if you think I mean the McDonalds arch, you should probably put that burger down and get out more. This was called Delicate Arch.Again, the picture doesn’t do justice to its size. The walk to it is worth it alone. A mile and a half each way of upaved trail, across huge flat rocks with lizards darting about and some squirell-like things popping up out of their burrows. Although a mile and a half is mot much, it ensured that the trail was peaceful and trekked by only those who wanted to be there. The sad fact is that, if it involves walking, the Americans won’t do it. Even sadder is that many are so fat, they couldn’t if they wanted to. Meaning they missed out being part of a group of the privileged few. It’s a very special place. People just sit and stare. You can’t help but do anything else. It’s not a “oooh, there’s another rock, lets go now” moment. There are no signs of civilization here. No indication of what time in earth’s history you find yourself. Just the quiet. As it says in the park leaflet; “Have you ever been to a place so quiet that you can hear the blood in your veins?” And you can. We stayed a while, then made our way back to the car and drove to the next sight. And the next. This is why we wished we had the whole day.
As the temperature fell rapidly, we stopped and - along with many other more professional looking photographers - took a picture of the sunset. That’s all there is to be said about it really. Pictures can say a thousand words, but the only way to feel it is to be there.We left the park at about 7:30, and as we drove in the dark our landscape changed around us from hot arid desert, and by the time we had crossed into Colorado and Glenwood Springs we were seeing warning signs of snow on the road ahead. At 11:30 we stopped and found ourselves some excellent accommodation, wandered out for a takeaway, brought it back, ate, and slept until 7am.

Day 9: Arrival in Denver

Denver: 39°44N 104°59W, pop (1995e) 553 000. State capital in Denver Co, NC Colorado, USA; altitude 1609 m/5280 ft; largest city in the state and a port on the S Platte R; the gold-mining settlement of Auraria was united with two other villages to form Denver, 1860; airport; railway; university (1864); processing, shipping, and distributing centre for a large agricultural area; stockyards and meat packing plants; electronic and aerospace equipment, rubber goods, luggage; tourism (several national parks in the area); professional teams, Nuggets (basketball), Broncos (football), Colorado Rockies (baseball); Fornery Transport Museum, art museum, US Mint; National Stock Show (Jan).

We said an early goodbye to Glenwood Springs, and I for one decided that this would be one place I would certainly return to again. The whole area has such a descriptive nomenclature; Rifle, Steamboat, Leadville, Silvertone, Golden. And it’s all as quaint and costly as it sounds. We’d timed our stay just about right if you ask me. We were arriving just a little to late for the ski resorts to be expensive, and a little too early for the ’sun’ resorts to be too costly. Had we arrived in Glenwood Springs 3 weeks earlier, or California four weeks later, our holiday would have cost near double what it did for accommodation. Oh, and if you’d like a landmark as to where Glenwood Springs is, it’s near Aspen. Heard of it now?! We drove through a pass that had been blocked by snow the previous night, and the view is about all you could want. That night we ate as much Chinese as we could for $2 each at the Cho Mein..better yet, we lived to tell the tale!

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An unhurried start towards Vegas that morning. Fairly quickly encountering desert, we made good time along the fast roads. Something that had either changed since I was last there, or is perhaps a regional thing were the speed limits. I remember the north-east of north America as being quite retarded in their attitude to speed at times. I have no complaints with a 20 zone by a school, but when a speed limit drops from 65 to 35 on a straight flat open road, with no warning but a small sign and a cop sitting round the next corner, you began to see where all the polices revenues come from. And at $100 a time, speeding tickets are a good source of it. On most roads in the southwest, the limit is a more sensible 75. Originally, the 55 limit was introduced in the 70’s due to the fuel crisis at the time. As 56mph was then the most efficient speed for a car, that was the thinking behind the limit. However, when trying to cover 400 miles of desert, those extra 20mph make a lot of difference. The problem was that at such a pedestrian pace, people were simply falling asleep and killing themselves. In addition, fuel efficiency of cars is far better now, which is another reason behind the change, according to our American friends, who seemed to know what they were talking about. Although the desert is in no way a boring place in parts. We pulled of the main road at XXX and took a detour through the Mojave national preserve. We’d just missed the flowers of the spring, but still there were brilliant blues and purples, and whole orchards of Joshua Trees. We happened upon the Kelso Depot, a ghostly now-abandoned train servicing station, which is probably one of the remotest buildings I’ve ever seen.

Nevada: pop (1995e) 1 539 000; area 286 341 sq km/110 561 sq mi. State in W USA, divided into 16 counties; the ‘Sage Brush State’, ‘Battle Born State’, or ‘Silver State’; part ceded by Mexico to the USA in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848; included in Mormon-ruled Utah Territory, 1850; settlement expanded after the Comstock Lode silver strike, 1859; a separate territory, 1861; joined the Union as the 36th state, 1864; capital, Carson City; other chief cities, Las Vegas and Reno; rivers include the Colorado (part of the Arizona border) and Humboldt; L Pyramid and L Winnemucca in the W; L Tahoe on the Californian border; highest point, Boundary Peak (4006 m/13 143 ft); mainly within the Great Basin, a large arid desert interspersed with barren mountain ranges; an area of internal drainage, with most of the rivers petering out in the desert or ending in alkali sinks; in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada Mts of California; the driest of all the states; mostly unpopulated and uncultivated, with a few oases of irrigation; Hoover Dam creates L Mead; federal government owns 85% of Nevada’s land; mining (mercury, barite, silver, and several other minerals); a major gold supplier; oil discovered 1954; agriculture not highly developed; cattle, sheep, dairy products, hay, alfalfa; food processing, clay and glass products, chemicals, copper smelting, electrical machinery, high technology industries, lumber; tourism, notably the shores of L Tahoe, Death Valley National Monument (partly in Nevada), and the gambling resorts of Las Vegas and Reno (which attract around 20 million visitors each year; gaming taxes a primary source of state revenue); liberal divorce laws an attraction to many from outside the state; very rapid population growth (50% increase between 1980 and 1990).

Las Vegas: 36°10N 115°09W, pop (1995e) 331 000. Seat of Clark Co, SE Nevada, USA; largest city in the state; named after the natural meadows which served as camping sites on early trails to the W; settled by Mormons, 1855-7; purchased by a railway company, 1903; city status, 1911; airport; railway; university (1957); noted for its gaming casinos and 24-hour entertainment; commercial centre for a mining and ranching area; printing and publishing, chemicals, glass products; Mormon Fort, Liberace Museum.

A second visit to this City for both of us. In the three years, our impression was that the centre had doubled in size. One new feature was the newly opened “Speed, the ride” rollercoaster at the Sahara Hotel. This is 45 seconds of scream. As a seasoned coaster rider, I was determined to remain cool, calm and collected while Tracy stood pale and nervous next to me. We climbed in, strapped on and waited. And then we went. And how! 5,000hp of magnetic linear induction pulls you out of the station and to 40mph in under 2 seconds. A sharp right is closely followed by a loop, and finally dead straight up 200ft, and then you drop back down and do it all again in reverse. We went on twice, and I can honestly say that, especially the first time, I was not as cool, calm and collected as I’d though - it was 45 seconds of breathless expletive!
Before this, however, we had discovered one slight problem we hadn’t counted on…the fact that we had arrived not only during the weekend, but also coincided with a conference. Meaning that all the rooms were either full, or a ridiculous $249+tax and upwards, from their usual $30-$60. Even the sleaziest motel room was $119. So we drove up to the next town. And the next town. Then we had a 40 mile drive to the next town, and the only motel there was, you guessed, full. We were exhausted, and the next town wasn’t for 70 miles, so we put the seats back and slept in the car that night in a truckstop. Not too bad, all things considered. The only downside was that we had to drive all the way back to Vegas to swap rental cars. That’s 80 miles in total just to park! Even worse still, we were on the road that we were due to travel anyway. We had to swap cars because Alamo were going to charge us $500 for a one-way to Denver, but no charge for Vegas. And as Dollar don’t charge drop-off between Vegas and Denver, the only way was to do this swap.

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Day 4: Down Mexico way

We stayed a little north of San Diego last night, and then drove down and parked in one of the many car parks right by the border ($6/day). The was the option of a bus, but we didn’t have the correct change, so we walked the 50 feet instead. You wouldn’t even know you’d crossed an international border on the way into Tijuana, Mexico. The only was you knew you’d arrived was the fact that, almost instantly, one is hustled for taxis and bars and watches. We were warned about the street-kids, and although we were told that most of them were collecting money for drugs or similar, when one bare-foot urchin of about 5 years old approached us, holding a cup and staring with the biggest brownest most innocent eyes we’d ever seen, we just wanted to pick her up, adopt her there and then, and take her home with us. However, we found ourselves actually saying “no thanks” and walking on. You then cross a bridge over what must be the worlds largest open sewer, cunningly disguised as a flood channel. Past more hustlers and roaming dogs, and then it all gets quite nice. Even though I kept a decidedly firm grip on my camera and Tracy, I didn’t really feel unsafe. Amusingly, from every shop we heard shouts of “Hey! Honeymooners! Come inside - everything 100% off for you”. Not sure that they really meant 100% off, we kept walking. As we walked through what must have been a town square, all the sleazy gringos started whistling at Tracy - “Hey Hey! Sexy sexy SEXY!” they shouted. Tracy didn’t mind at all, and I had to admit, she’d dressed for the occasion! We continued, and found an export shop selling at quite agreeable prices (for example, 1 litre of Bombay Sapphire Gin for £7) and took two litres each. In the shop, we got chatting to an American couple, Clarke and Gayle, who seemed to do this on a regular basis, as do 20 million other Americans each year, and eventually ending up eating fajitas and drinking beer with them in a small, reasonably authentic bar in a sidestreet. It turned out that they knew of some accommodation that night where they were staying; an ‘RV park’, which is basically like a timeshare for caravans, except they are fixed to the ground, can be rented night by night, and are based in a club with loads of facilities like pool, sauna, showers, courts etc. A bit like a camp-ground on speed. And so we left them and went exploring a little more of Tijuana. I have to be honest, Tijuana is an experience, but not one I’d really go too far out of my way for unless I was in the area again.

Day 5: A little R&R

The only non-hectic day of the vacation, and we decided to have a bit of a holiday. Pretty much the whole of the day was consumed with relaxing by the pool, swimming, and topping up of tans. In the evening, we met up with our new-found friends, who were unbelievably hospitable, and provided for us a splendid barbeque. We took along a crate of Budweisser (wassup?!) and had a thoroughly good evening as the sun set into the surrounding hills.

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The next morning we headed for one last chat to the seals at the end of the pier, and after another few hillclimbs we picked up our rental car. I decided that a bit of a drive through San Francisco was needed, and I also managed Lombard Street in the monster car without scraping anything.
We drove across the Golden Gate bridge, parked the other side, and walked halfway back across. The tops of the bridge uprights were shrouded in fog, as is often the case. And so we drove to an old fortress viewpoint high above the bridge thinking that we’d perhaps be able to look down on a blanket of fog with the spires sticking out. Instead, we just found ourselves looking down at a rather ghostly looking fog-shrouded bridge. Impressive all the same. We drove back across the bridge, and headed off down ‘route 1′, a very bendy and breathtaking drive.National Geographic’s Route 1 narrative sums it up nicely.
“Route 1, opened in 1937, climbs as high as 1,000 feet (305 meters) above the sea. From Soberanes Point watch for sea otters, which are protected along the entire coast.
After driving through Carmel Highlands, where impressive houses perch on granite cliffs above the sea, you reach the start of Big Sur, which extends 90 miles south to San Simeon. On this fabled coastline, redwood groves reach skyward, the Santa Lucia Range plunges into the sea, and waves are beaten to froth on ragged rocks. It’s a place of elemental power that can make human affairs seem inconsequential.”
As we pulled into Santa Cruz, Tracy got rather excited. This was where she worked in 1997 for the summer, and never in a million years did she think she’d be back. It really is an “all-American” resort. It’s Blackpool for the yanks. We arrived early evening, and after taking a few sunset pictures, we headed downtown for a rather excellent pizza and pitcher of Bud at the Bar and Grille. The main street through town (and that’s all it is) has a “nice” feeling to it. The populous seems to be a cross between ex-hippy, and worthy youngsters protesting outside the Gap store. That and street artists. Altogether a pleasant experience. Slightly the worse for wear, we then headed toward the Asti bar, Tracy’s old drinking haunt, and so to bed.
A 360 tour of Santa Cruz town area is available from santacruz360.com.

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