More Travels 4-Heading West Again

Heading West Again

From the rim, the road snakes through the valley below.

John Steinbeck never traveled like we did this morning, if his accounts in Travels with Charley are even remotely accurate. According to the famous travel narrative, Steinbeck left Long Island in his remodeled pickup truck with a camper top nicknamed Rocinante and ferried across the Sound to begin a round-the-country tour. Intending to validate his views about America or see how the country had changed, he traveled incognito with his standard French poodle Charley.
We, on the other hand, flew over the same water around 6:23 a.m. in a Boeing 737 bound for Dallas, Texas, and then in a Bombardier headed for Grand Junction, Colorado. Hardly incognito, after full body security checks and luggage scans, Andy and I set out to explore Colorado and Utah, two states Steinbeck never traversed at all. Our fourth retirement trip underway on the 6:10 a.m. American flight, we headed west again to see the U.S.

Gnarled Utah juniper trees cling
to the windswept edges. 

Recent analysis of Steinbeck's writing suggests many inaccuracies. He probably didn't spend as much time traveling alone with the dog sans wife as he suggested in the book, and people he supposedly met along the way could have been contrived to fulfill literary purposes. We'll never know. But, no matter. He viewed the country through his own kaleidoscope, piecing together fragments of story and changing bits of opinion to form his own collage of this country. We'll do the same, as we add two more states to our list of 42 travelswithsuzi.With 30 minutes at Dallas airport to dash from gate C24 to gate B24, we literally ran across Texas. A ticket agent called our names on the loudspeaker as we neared the gate at full gallop. "American Eagle boarding complete," she blasted on the intercom, as we breezed through the gate.
"Too close for comfort," I gasped.
Andy agreed.

Andy stops to relax
in the afternoon heat.

But we were on the way to Grand Junction, Colorado. Our fourth U.S. retirement adventure had begun. From the window of the plane we could see the badlands stretching beneath us. "That's the largest flat top mountain in the world," said Andy as the plane descended toward the city. We learned later it's actually called Grand Mesa.
"It's early," said Andy when we landed before noon. "We'll take advantage of the day."
That meant hiking, regardless of the fact that we had been up since 2 a.m.

Every curve of Rim Road offers
new panoramas of the valley below.

 In the Visitor Center at Colorado National Monument at the 5,787-foot elevation, I read about Rim Rock Drive, a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) project started in 1931, as one of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's  New Deal programs. The CCC employed two and a half million young, unmarried men. Eight hundred of them built Rim Rock Drive. They were paid $30 a month, but $25 of that was sent directly back home to their parents.  Nine men had been killed during the construction in 1933, when part of the overhang collapsed at Half Tunnel and crushed them. Today Rim Rock Drive is 23 miles of breathtaking views. It climb from the Grand Valley of the Colorado River to the park's high country and then winds along the plateau rim.

Billowing clouds in the distance remind
visitors of recent torrential rains.

On May 24, 1911, President William Howard Taft had signed a proclamation to preserve the land around the rim as Colorado National Monument.  In addition, John Otto, an avid outdoors man and frontier conservationist who first visited the area in 1906, opened the back country to visitors by cutting and marking trails. He and the citizens of Grand Junction pressured the government to preserve the land. In 1907, in this land of the Ute Indian, Otto "... found these canyons and they feel like the heart of the world to me." He completed the Serpent's Trail in 1921. Taft rewarded Otto for his work by naming him the park's caretaker in 1911, a job he gladly did until 1927 for $1.00 a month.

Independence Monument
dominates the landscape.

The plateau and canyon country, with towering masses of naturally sculpted rock, embrace 32 square miles of rugged up-and-down terrain. First, we set out along the Canyon Rim Trail to Brookcliffe Overlook and the Window Rock Trail, a two-mile trip along the top rim with views of Independence Monument. Eastern whiptail lizards skittered across the dirt path before us, and an antelope ground squirrel darted under a pinion pine tree. Although the air temperature was only 79 degrees, the sun warmed our little car outside to 99 degrees.

Andy tries his hand
at photography.

A mile along Otto's Trail brought us closer to Independence Monument. John Otto initiated a tradition of scaling the 450-foot monolith to fly an American flag from the top on the Fourth of July. The tradition continues today.From Artist's Point we observed the colored layers of rock--vivid reds, purples, oranges and browns created by iron and other minerals--laid down eons ago when this area was under water. Highland View provided breathtaking vistas of the valley below.

Rock layers weather and crumble
at the valley edge.

Upper Ute Canyon, Ute Canyon and Fallen Rock allowed us to take short walks for spectacular vistas. 
"We'll do some longer trails tomorrow when we are fresher," said Andy. Hopefully the weather will be much the same as today.

Shadows add color in the
mid-afternoon.

In the past twenty years, this part of the Colorado high dessert has bloomed with irrigation in a far different way from the Grand Junction we visited when the kids were young. Wineries have sprung up in and around the small towns. Andy and I stopped for samples at St. Kathryn Cellars, known for its assorted fruit wines, and the Talon Winery, featuring traditional samples. Farms and orchards line the back roads through the country in low-key beauty.

Rock spires rise in majesty.

As we headed back to Grand Junction for dinner and an early bedtime, several interesting facts stood out. Posted speed limits here averaged 75 m.p.h., so different from what we know back home. Gas at almost every station in town was $3.599 a gallon, with one as low as $3.509 a gallon and 85 ethanol at $3.199 a gallon. When we left Connecticut, we were happy to find a station at $3.959. Streets just outside of town had unusual names like F5/8 Road, F1/4 Street and F31.3 Lane. But the beauty of the landscape is amazing, and the people are warm and friendly.