May 2024
Day 1 Friday 10 May
Leaving Denver airport, we’ve got 16 nights…heading straight out of Colorado for Wyoming to get to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National parks. The radio is tuned to country music. We’ve got a game going; scoring points on how many times rodeo, dust, spurs and his wife dying or leaving get mentioned. If this was a drinking game you’d get drunk quickly. Driving by boat rentals, big-box stores, Long Pond reservoir, Terry Lake…little box houses in shades of grey, green and tan. Heading to Laramie passing acres of green pasture, shrub, mountains, horses and corrals…Linda Ronstadt comes on the playlist singing Desperado. Outcrops of rounded boulders tufted with scrubby pines. We cross the border into Wyoming and within minutes the temperature has dropped 10 degrees. A short detour to Laramie. On Snowy Range Road sits Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic site; the only prison to successfully incarcerate Butch Cassidy for 2 years in 1894…his crime? Stealing horses.
On to the Purple Heart Highway. Roadside signs ‘Big Rig Crash’. Missing our exit we detour through Rawlins, a small town which looks to have grown up around the nearby oil refinery. A fuel and Pringles pitstop at ‘Stinker’ where the store attendant is transfixed by Dave’s English accent. The Wyoming landscape is beautiful rolling…in great sweeps rising up to snow capped mountains and down glorious green hills to the sagebrush. Under a dazzling high sun at 7pm and no other cars for miles. It’s been a long day; straight from the plane to the car for 5 and a half hours but we’re uplifted by all the beauty. We overnight in Lander at a hotel looking like a motel with high varnished logs for a cabin feel and eat at Lander Grill and Bar on Main Street.
Day 2 Saturday 11 May
A wonderful little museum in Lander, the Fremont County Pioneer Museum where we spent an hour in Wyoming’s history of ranchers, fur trappers, cowboys, Indian tribes, outlaws and lawmen….and the skull of gold prospector Harvey Morgan with a wagon hammer through it after losing a battle with a group of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors in 1870. Beautifully curated and displayed, we’ve been in many similar across the country but this was one of the best.
Driving Highway 287 miles of open road with only a pickup sharing it, through Wind River Reservation; simple housing, weathered trailers discarded cars backdropped by snowcapped mountains. A field of at least 60 or more horses. Nodding donkeys pull for oil.
To the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois where the billionaire owner has created a truly jaw dropping museum. He wanted to buy a tank and since that first purchase now owns around 600 military vehicles. A balanced overview of all soldiers in conflict not just Americans. Mixed emotions; respect for the soldiers and for mechanical engineering skills, but saddened that this is what humans have put those skills to use for. A local guide called Don told us some history and some personal war accounts from his family. The staff are excellent and the museum is really well designed, great layout and graphics.
Ate at the Cowboy cafe in Dubois after dropping in to the gift shop next door to say hello to Don’s wife Marion as promised. In the cafe we meet a young German couple Marcel and Sabrina who showed us a photo of them the day before in the Colorado Rockies in several feet of snow…something we’re trying to avoid this trip.
Heading to Jackson we pass a sign warning us ‘Do not approach bears on the road stay in your vehicle.’ Grizzlies roam here. On US Highway 26 following the edge of the Shoshone National Forest and the river which twists and loops…patches of snow low down near houses melt in dazzling sun. Passing by ranches ‘Lava Creek’ and ‘Moose Gulch’. Entering Bridger and Teton National Forest and our first glimpse of the Tetons…majestic, huge, floating like a painting….leaving the car to take photographs and crunch our shoes in hard packed snow.
Met Chris his son Zachary and daughter-in-law Janelle at a mountain overlook turnout. They’d driven 20 hours from Texas the day before chasing the northern lights…Zachary jumped in his car with Janelle swung by to pick up his dad and hit the road. I love people like this, impulsive, grabbing hold of life.
Driving further we get our first sight of Bison roaming the Plains. I get out of the car but stay behind it…these animals are huge, can move fast. Their fur looks patched, worn… huge heavy heads dark bearded and brawly.
To Jackson Hole, wow it’s fancy…there’s a ton of money in this city. Swanky shops, restaurants, ski slopes…young women in expensive clothes and prairie hats. It’s too fancy to be of much interest to us, no quirkiness too perfect. The town backed by the steep slopes melting now, season done but still coach tours rolling in. We meet Bea Jones singing, playing cover songs in the park, originally from Tennessee but moving around the country…at our request she plays us one of her own songs and it is beautiful.
Day 3 Sunday 12 May
Driving out from Jackson Hole following the Grand scenic loop on Teton Park Road. Lucky for us this road only just re-opened the day before after closure for winter. Stopping at Mount Moran turnout named for the famous landscape painter Thomas Moran who in 1872 joined an expedition to Yellowstone. Jackson Lake reflects the Tetons in a breathtaking scene.
Leaving the loop heading in to Yellowstone following the Lewis River…pines climbing down the mountainside, snow melt running the river high. Banks of newly ploughed snow tower at the side of the road… elevation 8,000 feet and Lewis Lake is still frozen over.
In Yellowstone we stop at West Thumb Geyser Basin to walk the boardwalks among the boiling pits of geysers and mud…stunning overflows of mineral deposits in orange, mustard and bronze…aptly named the paintpots. Looking out across a crystal clear Yellowstone Lake. The colours and sulphur mist result in a fascinating landscape.
Driving on to see the infamous geyser Old Faithful…walking another boardwalk for half an hour to see more hot springs and mineral run offs, deep boiling pools of blue…the colours are startling. Back to the seated area to watch Old Faithful erupt, predicted 12.30pm…only 10 minutes late. About 1,000 people are gathered to watch.
Our independently planned roadtrip gives us a day here but we’ve still been able to see Grand Teton and the western part of Yellowstone. At each National Park entrance we’re given helpful maps with sightseeing advice. Buying our National Parks pass meant us avoiding the longer queues. Yellowstone is so vast an area you’d need at least 3 days, but 2 would cover a loop around it. We’re not really trail hikers so this was enough for us and the Tetons were the spectacular highlight. Back in the car eating sandwiches then heading back along route 287 to Oxbow Bend on to Blacktail Ponds overlook then Mormon Row. The landscape colours changing as the sun tracks overhead.
Back to Jackson Hole for a great TexMex dinner where we meet Jesus who works 16 hours a day 7 days a week across two businesses. If he takes any time off from either he doesn’t get paid…how can this be legal?
Day 4 Monday 13 May
Today’s destination Salt Lake City in Utah via Idaho. Leaving Jackson Hole following the Snake River, through the mountain pass on Highway 26 by Wolf Creek, Dry Gulch, Snake River Canyon in to Alpine…passing the Flying Saddle Resort, Bullock Moose Saloon, Red Quill Lane. Farms and generational rows of rusting tractors and trailer homes in Etna. The slightly bigger town of Thayne (population 360) has a strip mall and hair salon. Between the two places there must have been 6 or 7 churches. By Stawberry Creek, through Grover, driving under a wide antler arch in Afton on through Smoot under Red Top, Wagner and McDougal Mountains and Wyoming Peak. Roadside sign: ‘Your dad called said you needed a job. We’re hiring’. Just before crossing in to Idaho we see a Bald Eagle fly in to the trees close to the road…we’re driving by Caribou National Forest. In Idaho through Geneva to Montpelier where we stop by the Butch Cassidy museum sadly now closed and for sale; the only remaining bank building in the US still standing that Cassidy robbed.
In Bloomington Idaho before Bear Lake there’s a sign about British settlers. Through Ovid, taking some photos of small town Paris then driving Paris Bottoms Road…we’re following the Oregon Trail established in the 1830s by mountain fur traders. Bear Lake to our left is huge and sparkles blue in a hot overhead sun and on the edge of the actual town of Bear Lake we cross in to Utah.
Driving Canyon Road, winding up in to the mountains…the scenery is gorgeous. Snowmelt fast running river. Pulling over to eat lunch at Chokecherry picnic area on the riverbank in the shade. Pine trees, red dogwood, wildflowers and rockfaces…a beautiful spot to linger awhile. On through Logan Canyon where a river runs strong near to a water testing site and the landscape swells upwards in to lush green hills. Through Ogden, a skiing and university town where a rodeo sign taunts us as we still haven’t been anywhere at the right time to attend a rodeo.
We cross in to Utah, my 48th State and arrive in Salt Lake City where all of Temple Square is a huge construction site. The main temple hidden by scaffolding. The Mormon church owns around 10 city blocks, it’s a huge area. Fresh landscaping, flowers, young trees…and the office block for the Church of the Latter Day Saints towers…filling an entire city block. It’s strange walking around, hardly anyone on the streets other than a handful of other baffled tourists…it’s sterile, no soul, no city street vibrance. In the car we drive around seeking other neighbourhoods, landing in Sugarhouse which has a fun record and skateboard store called Raunch Records where we hang out for a while talking with the owners. Thankfully we’re staying outside the city in a small place called Bountiful, easy parking free from city confines.
Day 5 Tuesday 14 May
We came to Salt Lake as a base for Bonneville Salt Flats and early next morning we’re driving the Dwight F Eisenhower on to Lincoln Highway heading for Wendover near the State line with Nevada. Passing the city namesake lake we see two roadway signs: ‘After You Die You Will Need God’ on one side ‘Showclub Girls Girls Girls’ the other. Where the salt flats begin eccentricities pop out of the landscape; the Tree of Utah, sculpture a small Loch Ness Monster made from tyres, upturned glass bottles pushed in to the salt crust in arrows and circles. The sun is bright at 10.30am the glare strong. There’s free roadside parking where the salt flats stretch out in to a vast field of dazzling white. We walk across the salt crust of this dried out lake. I photograph a young Indian woman in a vibrant red sari. I take my sunglasses off and can’t see; miles of brilliant white, blue sky and sun. A Native American is selling jewellery at the edge of the flats. I buy a Dalmatian stone necklace for my niece. We drive to Bonneville Speedway which is under a few inches of water, people remove their shoes and paddle.
We meet Terry and Shelly from Florida who tell us they have horses and chickens and a raised seating area above their chicken coop from which they watch the annual Strawberry Festival in their hometown. They invite us to visit.
Just 6 miles from the Salt Flats the 19 metre (63 feet) tall ‘Wendover Will’ cowboy created in 1952 for the Stateline Casino, looms in Nevada…5 States in 5 days. Not much to see in West Wendover, arid dusty land 5 casinos and a cannabis dispensary making it popular with folks in Utah where both are illegal. We see a copper mine on the Roadside America app and take a detour. A lump of rock hits the windscreen 40 minutes out, the windscreen starts to crack, we reach the pit but its closed so a phone call to Hertz and we’re heading for the airport to switch to another vehicle. All the miles we’ve covered on our US roadtrips and luckily we’ve never had car issues. Hertz swaps us to a new SUV and within minutes we’re driving back to our hotel. Too tired to go out to eat we lie on the bed and stuff our faces with what we’ve got left in the coolbag.
Day 6 Wednesday 15 May
Up at 5.30am, cool bag packed and on the Bangerter Highway by 6am…the rising sun painting high mountain ridges pink. Driving to Zion National Park. We pass a mini Mount Rushmore in fibreglass right on the highway advertising something I missed. There’s a huge letter G sitting half way up a mountain…several miles further there’s a giant letter Y. I must have missed the rest of that too. We pass Timpanogo food distribution…richest country in the world still has food banks. A huge Stars and Stripes flag followed by a big KFC bucket on a pole and a car wash sign ‘WiggyWash’. We pull in at Terrible’s for gas and diesel. Sign: ‘Know What’s Below Call 811 before You Dig.’ Long gaps between services, with only 90 minutes of driving left we’re looking for a breakfast pitstop. Dog Valley, nothing…but a garage at Cove Fort…we pull over fuel up make breakfast in the car. Drive under a sign for Beaver/Las Vegas…of course we sing it like Elvis: Beaver! Las Vegas! It cracks us up. More signs: ‘This is a sign you shouldn’t drive high’, ‘Shackled by Lust Jesus sets Free’, ‘4,000 Firearms in Stock.’ At Zion we drive first through Kolob Canyon Park, towering red rock canyons…impossible to capture well in a photograph.
Driving another 50 minutes into Zion Park where the parking for the shuttle is full at 12 noon so we head further and find a roadside spot. I make sandwiches on my knees, pack our backpack and we get the shuttle bus up to stop 9, the River Walk. Independent car access isn’t allowed and it makes sense when you see how many other visitors are here and it’s still nowhere near peak season. The river walk takes us an easy 2 mile route there and back walking alongside the Virgin River through towering canyon rock. The route further on in to The Narrows isn’t open yet due to snowmelt making the river run fast and high…this being your only way to access. It’s hot, the sun burns overhead hazing the red rock. We stop to eat our sandwiches under a tree, complete the loop then take the shuttle bus back to the car, driving back on ourselves 30 minutes to La Verkin to stay one night at Zion camp and cottages.
Day 7 Thursday 16 May
Out earlyish to drive the Zion Mount Carmel Highway…through Mt. Carmel tunnel. There’s a long line to enter the tunnel already at 8.30am. All the turnouts are filled with cars from people heading on trails. We’re not stopping anyway but shows you’ve got to get here early. The tunnel is just over a mile long with ‘windows’ cut in to the rock giving vistas across the landscape. If we’d only had time for this drive through Zion it would have been worth it. Climbing the highway winding between these vast rockfaces the sun rising behind them…it’s better views than we got from the shuttle the day before as we’re so much higher. Exiting the park, fueling up at Orderville, driving through Stout Canyon, by Shingle Creek following the East Fork of Virgin River. Through open farmland, fast running creeks, cows in pasture…turning eventually on to Scenic Byway 12 Dixie Forest, driving through Red Canyon where we pull over to sit on a sweeping wash of red rock. A sign reads Summit 7,777 feet.
In to Bryce National Park, no line at the entrance but parking at Bryce Point is full, early morning trail walkers got here first. Got a space at Inspiration Point and the views of the Hoodoo amphitheater are incredible…I’ve never seen rock formations like this. Colours are vivid and painterly, from cream to pink to orange and red…it’s mindblowing.
We drive on to Sunrise Point where we find a space in the overflow parking and we walk the Queens Garden trail..steep with loose stones but takes us down so we’re directly among the hoodoos; they look pinker close up.
Trees send out long tap roots looking for water, clinging to the edges of this vast canyon. Finding rare shade under a pine tree we eat sandwiches overlooking another surreal vista.
To Boulder Mountain Guest Lodge in the small town of Boulder Utah where we’re staying tonight with a dinner reservation at nearby Devil’s Backbone Grill. The Lodge is in a rural setting down dirt roads away from the highway. Could have been idyllic but they’re prepping for a weekend wedding, banging around in the kitchen and dining room right next to our room…no insulation in a timber lodge, the guests upstairs may as well have been in our room with us. No staff after 9…nothing we could do. The horses made up for it and the views of the dramatic white landscape driving in.
Dinner at Devil’s Backbone Grill was more successful. Apparently it’s won some awards and the food and service are good…pricey for what it is…New York prices…but we have an enjoyable evening and that’s a lot of what it’s about. The owner walks the tables greeting everyone in person. Old school charm.
Day 8 Friday 17 May
7am start driving further along Scenic Byway 12 on to highway 24 leading through National Reef Park where huge rock formations shoulder the road. It’s another jaw dropping landscape. After Fruita we pull over to see Petroglyphs on the pink rock wall. Utah has the most colourful landscape of any other State we’ve driven though.
Red turning to white…driving between statuesque boulders pocked with hollows. On through Cathedral Valley where the rocks change colour this time to grey; long angles, fluted edges…then further on the road they slump like mass piles of slag smoothed by wind…run offs of long low ridges like bridge anchors to the earth. Out of this valley of kings and in to the flat scrub of sagebrush. At Hanksville we stop at Hollow Mountain, a gas station…unleaded at $4.49…a shop and restrooms inside a rock selling T-shirts, maps, ice, bait. The novelty stop sets high prices. Leaving we cross Dirty River, pass through Green River, we’re on Highway 70… through Floy.
At Arches National Park we get caught out for the first time for the requirement of a timed entry booking…arriving at 11.30 the earliest we get is 2pm and sold out the following day. We book it, an additional small $2 fee and head for Canyonlands National Park…making sandwiches on my knees from the coolbag leftovers whilst waiting in line to enter the Island in the Sky entrance. Views across canyons stretching to the horizon 100 miles distant. We look out over Shafer Canyon from two different overlooks…impossible to wrap my mind around the thousands of years this landscape took to form.
Back to Arches where at 32 degrees celsius we’re o’ding on red rocks, it’s been a long day. More stunning scenery, we walk a couple of shorter trails between towering weather worn monoliths standing like sentries…giant chess pieces.
Saw some of the infamous arches and the twisted trees fascinate…but the heat beats us …we call it a day. Checked in to River Canyon Lodge in Moab, eat great food at Thai Bella Moab before calling it a night.
Day 9 Saturday 18 May
Finally had a rest day, we’ve driven around 2,200 miles already. Decent hotel with an outdoor pool and it’s 32c again so we lounged poolside, chatted with two other guests who gave us some tips for Colorado. Floated in a giant pink flamingo. A wander around Moab which has a lot more going on than expected and though a major jumping off point for adventure excursions, there’s plenty of good restaurants, coffee/bakery places, and among the tourist shops selling T-shirts and mugs printed with Moab, there’s an excellent book shop. We find some street art and eat ice-cream watching a car carrier go by loaded with Teslas…burnished futuristic bladed angles glinting wealth and bluster in the evening sun. We’ve got a long day on the road tomorrow to New Mexico so a down day helped us refuel.
Day 10 Sunday 19 May
Left Moab at 6.45am, heading 2.5 hours first to Durango Colorado to break up our route. Pulling over in Moab to take a photograph of Wilson’s Arch, a natural sandstone arch ironically more impressive than those we saw in Arches National Park.
Back in to Colorado at Dove Creek, elevation around 6,800. ‘Dove Creek Superette’, we’ve never seen that term used anywhere outside of France. Bypassing Cortez on to Route 184 passing McPhee Reservoir, the sun climbing, blazing at 8.30am. The landscape wide and open, rolling green pasture, farmland…through Dolores, Mancos, into La Plata county picking up the Navajo Trail on route 160…verdant still but hillier. Spruce, Pine, possibly Box Elder and the silver bark of Quaking Aspens just coming in to leaf. Acres of low scrubby trees still waiting to green look lilac in the light. A ski area at Hesperus now a steep green mantle. On the outskirts of Durango a sign for ‘The last hotel for 150 yards’. Driving on the Camino del Rio by a sign for Purgatory Resort. In Durango we wander in to another lovely independent bookshop, buy a travel mug and ‘sporks’ in a hiking shop. In the window of Skyhorse Saddle Company we gawk at the gorgeous hand tooled leather saddles. Another store caters to fishing, knowing nothing about it the stocked shelves fascinate us.
Back on the road we’re driving by San Juan National Forest, a sign for Lake Capote, through Pagosa Springs another place set up for outdoor pursuits. By Rocky Mountain Wildlife Park, through Chromo, Dulce, by the Navajo River, ‘Valley Feed and Mercantile’, ‘Margaritas Comedor and Lounge’. To Ghost Ranch where if you’re not on a tour, retreat or staying here…there seems little to do for the drop in day visitor. The landscape colours are beautiful and it’s easy to see Georgia O’Keeffe’s inspiration. Her small adobe cottage now used for guest accommodation only.
It’s predominantly female visitors; we wander for 30 minutes, visit the gift shop; I could be missing the point but it’s a disappointing visit…so much more could be done here that caters to day visitors as well as those staying overnight…but then they need funding to do that. And if this is your first introduction to this kind of scenery I can see that it will bewitch.
Abiquiu is a tiny pueblo with a pretty adobe church. Georgia O’Keeffe’s main house is here surrounded by a low adobe wall open only for pre-booked tours; sold out a few weeks before we got here. You can walk around Abiquiu in 15 minutes…it’s a little like a ghost town on a quiet early Sunday afternoon but a susserating wind and the quiet give it atmosphere and sneaking a glimpse over her wall, a brightly coloured bird in startling yellow, white red and black flashes across O’Keeffe’s garden.
We stop for tacos at roadside El Parasol, a small line of people even at 3 in the afternoon. Order, pay, wait for your number to be called through a speaker, take it away or sit as we do on wooden picnic tables under the trees. It’s a popular place with a steady stream of customers pulling up. Leaving we drive under a flyover painted with Posuweageh, driving by bowling alleys and casinos, a gun shop called ‘Indigenous Arms’ with a mural of a rifle toting Native American on the wall; we’re passing through the Tesuque Reservation. Across from the supermarket the Santa Fe national cemetery glows white with hundreds of identical simple headstones. To our Airbnb just 2 miles out of Santa Fe. It’s been a long day in the car and we’re dusty and tired…looking forward to 5 days of staying in one place. Adobe built, nestled next to the owners in our own space in the hills, hummingbirds flit the pines. It’s a gorgeous place.
Day 11 Monday 20 May
A lie in after 2,500 miles. We eventually head in to Santa Fe to explore. Museum Hill, a complex of low brown adobe buildings, thrills us with the fantastic Museum of International Crafts. We’re both lost in wonder wandering an area the size of a hanger filled with dioramas. From a room full of Mexican sculpted folk art alebrijes, to masks, ceramic figures, crafted tiny figurines. They’ve taken thousands of individually made pieces and built large scale dioramas around them. Too big to capture in a single photograph; depicting Russia, Spain, Mexico, Africa….it’s incredible and we’re here for 2 hours or more trying to take it all in….if you come here just for this museum it’s worth the trip.
We get a late lunch of pizza before visiting the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in the centre of town. It’s wonderful to visit museums dedicated to just one artist where you get a broader perspective of their work. I’m very familiar with her flower and skull paintings but today I learned so much more. Her colours were…are, beautiful and so much is resonant of the landscapes we’ve driven through the past few days. One of her instantly recognisable dresses is displayed with her favourite hand-tooled belt and among the paintbrushes and bottles are her lovely wooden boxes of pastels, the contents exactly reflecting the colours of her New Mexico landscapes. Another excellent museum.
Day 12 Tuesday 21 May
A day trip to explore. We pass a highway sign from the Calvary Chapel ‘Jesus is Knocking. Will You Let Him In’. A sign with a photo of a cellphone with the generic white Jesus superimposed on its screen ‘Don’t Ignore His Call’. So much religion in these desert States of wide open land populated by so few people. On the smaller La Puebla Road….we pass a warning sign: ‘When Flooded Turn Around. Don’t Drown’. Turning on to Santa Cruz Road heading for Chimayo, we’re looking for the well known Catholic pilgrimage site ‘El Santuario de Chimayo’, an adobe chapel built 1816 on earth said to have healing qualities. We couldn’t find the turn off until asking an hispanic man with a battered car, latching closed a gate after feeding donkeys in a strip of land off the road…who generously told us in sparse english to follow him in his car and took us right there. We thanked him and shook hands and laughed together at my terrible faltering Spanish, he had a kind open face.
We first step inside the chapel for children ‘Santo Nino de Atocha’ its rooftop adorned with a decorative heart in a cross. Inside hundreds of baby and children’s shoes cover the ceiling between the beams and photographs line the walls; parents asking for their children to be remembered in prayers, some of them obviously sick or passed on. It’s a very moving space. In the larger main chapel surrounded by its curving adobe walls, soft sunlight plays across the wooden beams and pews. Religious folk art in muted pastel colours is painted on to wood by 19th century ‘santeros’ hung on the walls and above the altar. Like outsider art; raw, naively done…gorgeous. There’s nothing elaborate or fancy in here, all simple, local and welcoming. I’m not religious but this is a beautiful space to sit in quiet contemplation. Only exterior photographs allowed…and though I feel disappointment at not capturing the art of it, it feels right to save this gentle space from the intrusion.
In a separate entrance is another room lined with family photographs, many of uniformed soldiers and pairs of crutches fill the walls. A small room at the back has a central hollow of loose earth scooped out from the foundations for rubbing on to the injured parts of your body, supposedly with healing powers because of the earth it’s built on. We indulge ourselves in the ritual of it. A gift shop is filled with visitors buying prayer cards, carved milagros and stone roses. Galleries and craft shops line the dirt road outside the chapel compound. Sadly, ‘Low Low’s Lowrider Art Place’, car and bike Museum, purveyor of Jesus art and snow cones is closed. Vigil Store an old gas station is repurposed as a general store, bunches of dried chilis hanging from the roof pitch.
To green fields in Truchas where the welcome sign says 1754, the movie adaptation of ‘The Milagro Beanfield’ war was filmed here. Sparsely populated…buildings hold each other up with corrugated metal roofs, private plots of land scattered with rusting cars and stacks of wooden broken palletts. At Las Trampas the large wooden gates of The Church of San Jose de Gracia are wide open but the church locked up. An adobe structure with walls six feet thick, stubbled strands of hay poking out. Completed in 1780 and defended constantly against Apache raids. Leaving the area I look down and notice a long sluice made from carved out logs running with water; an irrigation aqueduct carved from tree trunks. Charming in its ingenuity.
We follow the road to Taos. Through Carson National Forest, by Cristobal de la Cerna Land Grant; we’re listening to Tony Joe White, Link Wray, Cash and Waylon; the music fits the landscape. Driving by signs for Guns and Ammo, Vietnam Veterans Memorial and The Sun God Lodge. We’re following an open back flatbed truck piled with antlers, a spare tire, gasoline and a chainsaw. Just off Rotten Tree Road we park to look around the national historic site Taos Pueblo, $25 each to enter. First settled 1050 some of these buildings date to 1540…made from adobe; earth mixed with water and straw…continuously maintained. Tewa is the native language and approximately 150 native Americans live here with more living on the pueblo land outside the walls in modern homes. Most of the dwellings are single story but one is 3 stories, lying long, multi-doored and windowed. Outdoor wood burning ovens veined with heat lines, the adobe sooted black. Dogs run around playing in the dust…one is timid but has brilliant ice-blue eyes, it’s startling. A river runs rapidly between sparse trees through the centre on the other side of which most is cordoned off, kept private for the people still living here.
We enter the home of Autumn Deer now in his 70s, born in this house…performing a welcome song for visitors. A retired pueblo police officer he’s affable with a sense of humour. When he says his name I mishear, thinking he was saying Autumn and calling me dear. We laugh when I confess, feeling foolish. He shows us photographs of the pueblo in 1901 of a trading fair, the main plaza packed with horses. His home now used by him and his wife as a small shop…a place to cook fry bread and sell sour chili gummies to tourists. We buy some laughing when I can’t eat them without squinting. We don’t stop in Taos, it’s torn apart by roadworks and traffic bottlenecked as it’s filtered in to smaller roads. T-shirt shops and crystals, fading paint. Perhaps we should have given it more time but the magical Taos folks rhapsodise about seems gone. We stop again at El Parasol this time for delicious burritos.
Day 13 Wednesday 22 May
A lazy day. So many miles covered. Another wander around Santa Fe having lunch at Mille, a tip from my New York friend Jill. What I envisioned as an arts community is somewhat evident but this is slick, high end. Low level brown adobe sprawls punctured by an occasional huge building, an upmarket hotel resembles a prison. What first arouses the curiosity soon dissipates at the sameness of it all. The occasional burst of colour uplifts.
Yes it’s pretty but aside from the museums on Museum Hill we can’t find much more that would hold us here. A conversation with an english woman who declares it looks just like Mexico, a country we’ve travelled a few thousand miles across…there is little resemblance; no street life, no music, no running dusty dogs and battered pick up trucks…no bright oranges, pinks and turquoise…no gusto; this is genteel, rich, manicured within an inch. A long chat with Hal who we randomly got talking to who’s been living in Vietnam since the late 90s. Quality time back at the Airbnb reading an excellent biography of one of my favourite artists/writers David Wojnarowicz.
Day 14 Thursday 23 May
An 11.40am advance ticket purchase for Meow Wolf. Great fun but because we’d previously visited ‘Factory Obscura Mix-Tape’ in Oklahoma City and the bonkers mind-bending ‘House in the Rock’ in Wisconsin (a must see!), Meow Wolf didn’t surprise but it did delight…though they let in an awful lot of people; even with the staggered entry times it gets very crowded.
Worth visiting if you’ve never been to anything like this before; like being dropped in to a brain on acid with ideas exploding everywhere. We downloaded the app and spent around 2 hours as we ticked off a treasure hunt…crawling through washing machines opening a fridge door in to a sci-fi passage. Kids love it, as did we. Back in to Santa Fe to Mille for hot drinks and delicious fresh French pastries piled with fresh cream; the large communal table behind us filled with French visitors. To the supermarket to buy food for the long day on the road tomorrow.
Day 15 Friday 24 May
Left the Airbnb at 6.30am. We’ve got a 7 hour drive from Santa Fe to Broomfield near Boulder in Colorado. Driving by the exit for Las Vegas (not that one), on to highway 25 by Old Highway 85. Three horses stand motionless facing the same direction around another horse lying flat, one horse with his rear right hoof raised in guardian stance…is the fourth dead? In to Colfax county, the road ahead still pretty empty at 9am. By signs for Cimmaron Eagle Nest and Angel Fire, the Capulin Volcano Monument, through Raton Pass, we eventually cross the border from New Mexico in to Colorado. Passing Trinidad the town spelled out on the hillside, along Kit Carson Highway, by the city of Pueblo. A truck ‘Crete Carrier’ ‘Dedicated to Crete’. What is Crete other than a Grecian island? This part of the 25 is the Ronald Reagan Highway. On the outskirts of Colorado Springs we pass a large red and white barn with a horse sculpture on its roof called ‘Al Kaley Mule Train’. We’re heading further to a roadtrip favourite; a muffler man featured on one of our most used travel guides roadsideamerica; we stop to see him at The Copperhead Road Bar. Holding a guitar and a giant mug of beer, a giant saloon cowboy, the bar’s exterior draped with stars and stripes.
Traffic on Razorback Road slows us down, we’re 5 hours in but another 2 hours later and we arrive in Boulder. We park on Pearl Street, get a coffee and walk the shops. A pedestrian open air mall it’s an attractive area with trees and planting, street performers, a balloon guy somewhere contorting them in to animals and axes as every other kid carries one. A great bookshop and a fun toy shop where the ceiling is covered in kites of dragons, giant fish…long tails nylon in brilliant colours. There’s a lot of young people around, it’s a college town and LGBTQ flags are prominently displayed. The majority of shops sell outdoor clothing, camping, climbing, hiking, ski gear. There’s plenty of money here and it’s immaculate. A striking 1917-1918 veterans war memorial and an art-deco style courthouse.
There’s a great record store on Pearl called ‘Paradise Found’ where we get chatting with Devon who told us that Thom Yorke of Radiohead had visited the store and wound up putting Devon on the guest-list for the show of his latest band The Smile. We’re big Radiohead fans and we’ve seen The Smile play in New York. We swap Radiohead stories. Back at our holiday Inn on the outskirts of Boulder in Broomfield we lay on the bed eating sandwiches and reading…falling asleep after a long day.
Day 16 Saturday 25 May
Our last full day of our roadtrip we put our parks pass to use again heading to Rocky Mountains National Park, an hour from Broomfield. Driving N Foothills Highway a river running fast to our left, some trails still closed with snow. Another drive through stunning scenery. Climbing higher through masses of pine trees, rocky canyons…opening in to flat green meadow, alpine style houses. Spring green bursting to life. Into Estes which sprawls with outdoor adventure hire shops restaurants, wooden houses to rent, an RV park. It’s developed but attractively so. We enter the park at Beaver Meadows entrance. Pulling in to the Mary Parks Curve Overlook I photograph a group of young people reuniting from universities in California, Washington State, Connecticut for the Memorial weekend. Following the Trail Ridge Road, snow still hard packed under the trees as we climb higher to Rainbow Curve Overlook. At 10,560 feet we get as far as the trail allows this time of year, the wind so strong the car shakes. We struggle to open the doors and once outside the wind blusters, pushing against us. It’s exhilarating.
Turning around we descend taking a road around the alluvial fan before exiting the park. On Mary’s Lake Road we pull in to watch a huge overflow of water surging down the mountainside funnelled through pipes cascading in to Mary’s Lake. Through Wind River Pass by Longs Peak View, Annunciation Heights. In the old mining town of Nederland we’re still around 8,200 feet elevation. A ride on the Carousel of Happiness where each animal is hand-carved by Scott Harrison who was a young marine serving in Vietnam. He kept himself sane by playing a small music box gifted to him. Years later in 1986 he was inspired by that gift to buy the old framework of a 1910 Charles Looff carousel. He transported it to his home in Nederland and started carving around 50 new animals in his garage from Basswood over a period of 26 years; the originals had all been removed and sold. Now at $3 a ride you can enjoy his charming creation.
We have lunch next door to the carousel in an old train carriage called Train Cars Coffee and Kava. The nearby Mining Museum is closed but the big old steam shovel sits out front brought all the way from Panama where it once helped dig the Panama Canal. Heading back to Broomfield on Boulder Canyon Road through Calhoun Gulch…people fishing along the fast moving Boulder Creek, climbers like brightly coloured ants scale the rocks. It’s the final day, we fly back tomorrow.
At Denver airport the following day we see our friend Sheila who’s got off the same plane we’re about to board back to New York City. Life is full of coincidences. 3,300 miles driven in 16 days, 7 National Parks, 3 new States explored; Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. 6 States visited when including New Mexico, Idaho and very briefly Nevada. No rain, sun every day and extreme swings in temperature from snow to desert. Dave 49 out of 50 US States explored, me 48. American roadtrips are fantastic.
Stayed (the places we liked)
Wyoming Lander: Rodeway Inn Pronghorn Lodge https://www.choicehotels.com/wyoming/lander/rodeway-inn-hotels/wy068?mc=llgoxxpx
Wyoming Jackson Hole: 49er Inn & Suites https://www.townsquareinns.com/hotels/49er-inn-and-suites/
Utah Bountiful (near Salt Lake City): Holiday Inn Express & Suites https://www.ihg.com/hotels/us/en/bountiful/slcbu/hoteldetail?cm_mmc=GoogleMaps-_-EX-_-US-_-SLCBU
Utah La Verkin (Near Zion): Zion’s Camp & Cottages https://www.zionscampandcottages.com
Utah Boulder (near Bryce): Boulder Mountain Guest Ranch (very noisy room and unresponsive staff)
Utah Moab: River Canyon Lodge (basic room but fun outdoor pool) https://www.rivercanyonmoab.com/en/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=knowledge-graph
New Mexico Santa Fe: Airbnb https://www.airbnb.com/slink/uJCwL33H
Colorado Broomfield (between Boulder and Denver): Holiday Inn Express & Suites https://www.ihg.com/holidayinnexpress/hotels/us/en/broomfield/bjces/hoteldetail?cm_mmc=GoogleMaps-_-EX-_-US-_-BJCES
Ate (the places we liked)
Wyoming Lander: Lander Bar and Grill https://www.landerbar.com
Wyoming Jackson Hole: Merry Piglets TexMex https://www.merrypiglets.com/location/merry-piglets-jackson-hole
Utah Boulder: Hell’s Backbone Grill https://www.hellsbackbonegrill.com
Utah Moab: Thai Bella Moab https://www.thaibellamoab.com
New Mexico Espanola: El Parasol https://elparasol.com/espanola
New Mexico Santa Fe: II Vicino Wood Oven Pizza https://ilvicino.com
New Mexico Santa Fe: Mille (French bakery and restaurant) https://www.millenm.com
Colorado Nederland: Train Cars Coffee & Kava https://www.traincarscoffeeandkava.com
Colorado Boulder: Ozo Coffee West Pearl (Pearl St) https://www.ozocoffee.com
Saw
Wyoming Lander: Fremont County Pioneer Museum https://fremontcountymuseums.com/the-lander-museum
Wyoming Dubois: National Museum of Military Vehicles https://nmmv.org
Wyoming: Grand Teton National Park https://www.nps.gov/grte/index.htm
Wyoming: Yellowstone National Park https://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm
Utah Wendover: Bonneville Salt Flats https://www.visitutah.com/articles/bonneville-salt-flats-planning-guide
Utah: Zion National Park https://www.nps.gov/zion/index.htm
Utah: Bryce Canyon National Park https://www.nps.gov/brca/index.htm
Utah Moab: Arches National Park https://home.nps.gov/arch/index.htm
Utah Moab: Canyonlands National Park https://www.nps.gov/cany/index.htm
New Mexico Santa Fe: Museum of International Folk Art https://www.moifa.org
New Mexico Santa Fe: Georgia O’Keeffe Museum https://okeeffemuseum.org
Colorado Boulder: Rocky Mountain National Park https://www.nps.gov/romo/index.htm
Colorado Nederland: The Carousel of Happiness https://carouselofhappiness.org
Other
Roadside America Travel Guide: roadsideamerica.com download the app to use whilst travelling
Atlas Obscura Travel Guide: https://www.atlasobscura.com
Artist David Wojnarowicz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJWIylD7xqA&t=5s
Oklahoma City: Factory Obscura: Mix-Tape https://www.factoryobscura.com (and see previous blog post https://thetraveldiarist.com/2021/12/19/usa-kansas-city-to-houston)
Spring Green Wisconsin: House on the Rock https://www.thehouseontherock.com (and see previous blog post https://thetraveldiarist.com/2022/06/02/2900-miles-6-us-states)
The Travel Diarist 