Senseless Ramblings

The Hiraeth Series

I woke up at 5am to start the next leg of my cross-country adventure. The sun wasn’t up, and it was 27 degrees in Nebraska. I was even too early to get my hotel lobby coffee, so I hit the Casey’s truck stop just before getting back on I-80 headed west.

I drove in darkness for the first hour on a quiet highway, only accompanied by a few other travelers and truck drivers getting an early start to their day. I-80 is a major US east/west trucking corridor, so there is never a shortage of big rigs to drive along with. A little before 7am, the sky in my rearview mirror began to take on that lightening that tells of the coming dawn. By 7:30 the sun was starting to bathe the landscape in that gentle first light of morning.

For me, Nebraska feels like the place where history of westward expansion in the U.S. starts. Buffalo Bill’s ranch, old pony express offices, Fort Kearney, places along the interstate where you can stop and see ruts created by thousands of pioneer wagons headed west. When you look at the landscape today, 175 years later, you can still appreciate the will and determination of people to leave all they knew behind in an effort to build a new and better life for themselves. You can also appreciate why the Oregon Trail is called the worlds longest graveyard. In 2025, on an interstate highway, it is easy. Opening paths few men had ever traveled in the 1850’s in wagons, with livestock and families – the exact opposite. Truly a life threatening passage.

About two hours after heading out, I left I-80 and dropped south on Interstate 76 into Colorado. The terrain and plants started to change fairly quickly after getting into Colorado and for the first time in the trip I started to really be amazed by the absolute sheer immensity of our nation. When you see this land from an airplane at 35,000 feet, it is surreal. When you drive through it on the ground, it is very real.

People are not aware of just how big western states are if they are from the east. They think Colorado and they think mountains. Certainly Colorado has played that up and marketed to it, but Denver sits at the base of the Rockies, and from Julesburg, where you first enter Colorado on I-76 to Denver is 185 miles, and it isn’t mountains. This is ranch land. There are miles of highway where the only living thing you see are cattle. There are water troughs and windmills, pastures and fences, grass and more grass. It is sparse. It is open; and it is absolutely beautiful. As I drove over this land at first light, I uttered for the first time words that I would repeat throughout the day, more times than I can count, “Oh my God!” There are no other words you can use to describe the sight of something that is so stunning, so amazing, that you feel your breath catch in your throat.

I was still in that ranch land when I first started to see the Rocky Mountains. How can one not see them – they are enormous. They are so large that they seem close, but they are still a long ways away. Katharine Lee Bates who penned the verse for America the Beautiful did so while in Colorado. It is easy to understand the phrase “purple mountains majesty” when you see the Rockies rise before you. I also had an appreciation for the fear that seeing this range of mountains must have put into the hearts of the pioneers.

Passing out of the western edges of Denver, I immediately began to climb into the mountains. I could hear and feel my car slip into overdrive and struggle against gravity to keep moving upward. The grasslands are gone and now I am in the rocky fortress of the mountains. Rock walls and pine trees tower above. My ears pop. I continue to mutter, “Oh my God.”

Little towns cling to the mountains as you climb. The canyon is narrow and there is hardly room for these towns, let alone an interstate highway. For some reason (I don’t know why) the town of Silver Plume sticks out in my head. It seemed to have that “authentic western feel” as I drove by. It’s a little town. A Google search tells me that in 2020 the population was 207.

This was a beautiful November day to drive, so the signs that advised areas to pull off to put on snow chains in the height of winter was not lost on me. I can’t imagine driving those twisting, rising roads would be any fun in chains.

Not long after Silver Plume you reach the Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnel. This is the longest tunnel in the United States, boring itself for 1.7 miles through the solid rock of a mountain peak. Being in that tunnel going 75 MPH, you feel a bit like a bullet being fired down a rifle barrel. It is also an amazing feat of engineering.

After the tunnel also came one of the low points of the journey. Vail, Colorado. Yes, that Vail. Ski resort Vail.

To me, Vail, Colorado is like a dog turd on a perfectly manicured lawn. Here I was in one of natures great creations, the Rocky Mountains, and I come into a town that is the epitome of pretense, wealth, and excess. As I stated before, there is not a lot of space in the canyon between the two mountains, though there is a bit more in Vail; but every inch of that space is filled. It is filled with condos, houses, hotels, resorts, restaurants, gas stations, fast food joints, and on and on and on. All feeding that transient crowd of wealthy skiers and golfers who have the money to own a weekend home and destroy a pristine wilderness. Enough said there!

So while Vail was a hiccup in the otherwise beautiful trip, the anger I felt was short-lived when I hit Glenwood Canyon, just before coming to the town of Glenwood Springs. At this point I was descending the western slope of the mountains. The feel is very different than the other side though. The canyons have a different look and a different feel. Equally as beautiful, if not more so, than the trip up the eastern side. Still forested and rugged. Still mountainous. Yet there is also a feel that you know the desert is coming.

Shortly after passing through Grand Junction, Colorado on the western side of the Rockies, you cruise right over into Utah. Utah, where the speed limit is 80 MPH. These people obviously have places to be!

Interstate 70 through southern Utah brings with it a whole new series of “Oh my Gods.” Clay red mesas rise above you. You can see the effect that millions of years of hard wind and rain have had on the land. Where the mesas aren’t rising above you, equally gorgeous canyons are on display below you.

This landscape remained with me for the rest of the days travel.

To reinforce the immensity of this land, I stopped in the town of Green River for gas. As I reentered the interstate for that last leg of the afternoon, I was greeted by a sign, “Last Services For 100 Miles.”

At the end of that 100 miles was my destination for the night. I pulled into the little town of Richfield, Utah. I settled into my motel and the weight of another 12 hours on the road caught up quickly.

From the prairies and grasslands of Nebraska and northeastern Colorado, to the mountains of Colorado and down into the desert of Utah, this day of travel covered so much that this post cannot do it justice. Actually, no words can do any of this trip justice. To do that, you must travel the roads yourself.

Keep rambling, my friends!

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