In search of the continuous road trip
I was really looking forward to returning to Colorado and exploring a few more mountain towns. Here’s where we stopped and what we liked: View Larger Map Grand Junction Grand Junction, even though it’s right next to Colorado National Monument, doesn’t feel like a Colorado …
As if Aspen couldn’t get any better, we drove out of town over one of the coolest passes of the trip — Independence Pass. Why is it awesome? Well, the US Pro Cycling Challenge just biked over it (full route). The road from Aspen narrows and …
We didn’t think we’d like Aspen. We were expecting affluent assholes, pretentious pricks, and spoiled schoolkids. We were expecting Telluride. Telluride feels like it’s uncomfortable with its rich-town status. It asserts that its mine is still open, that it’s a working-class town. Which is bullshit, …
I keep having this recurring nightmare: Paul and I are standing on the edge of a canyon. One after the other, we fall in. Paul falls in, then I fall in. I fall in, then Paul falls in. Over and over. Sometimes we fall in …
Crested Butte isn’t the most accessible town. If you want to arrive via dirt road, you have some options (in the summer). If you want to stick to pavement, you’ve only got one choice — Highway 135, up the valley from the south. Maybe it’s …
I’d made my peace with saying goodbye to the desert at Dinosaur National Monument. Then we made a last minute swing through Colorado National Monument and my composure was shaken; my closure was ruined. You know how it is: you’re moving out of town and …
We met our first cross-country biker of the trip in Baker, NV. We’ve seen plenty of serious bikers on the road and have heard about others (my parents’ friends’ daughter and son-in-law recently completed a trip from Syracuse to San Francisco, you can read about …
Man, I was so excited to be back in Colorado. Even the billboards were excited for us to arrive — “Real beer is worth the drive,” they proclaimed. Soon we’d be able to buy Fat Tire beer, Lisa’s favorite. Our first stop: Dinosaur, Colorado. We checked …
Yes, Dinosaur National Monument has dinosaur bones. The best bones have long been removed and placed in museums, but they’ve left a few in place to illustrate the amazing forces that made these bones find-able in the first place: first, lots of animals and dinosaurs died in …
If you’ve got the time, take the scenic route. Better yet, plan to have the time to take the scenic route. When planning your trip, we’d advise avoiding all major highways: the 5s, 80s, 90s, 94s, 15s, 70s of the country. Sure, you can get …
The Border Inn sits just outside Baker, Nevada along Highway 50. It straddles the border … literally. On the Nevada side, you can get a breakfast beer, play a slot machine, and buy coffee. On the Utah side, you can fill up on gasoline or rent …
Like Guadalupe National Park, Great Basin National Park is an island in the middle of the desert. The Great Basin desert, to be exact. Great Basin National Park covers part of the Snake Range, a mountain range running close to the Nevada/Utah border, and the …