The American West

Date: 7/15/13                                    Time Zone: CDT

Location: Paducah KY

Travel Leg of journey: 38                        Day of journey: 73

Miles traveled today:  485                        Miles traveled since departure: 11,136

Percentage of travel completed: 101%

U.S. states visited today: KS, MO, IL, KY

Critters observed today: 1 fox [four legged]

Nancy & I have always loved to travel. And traveling by car or our motor home has been a frequent mode of ours. We have ventured to the most distant parts of all four corners of the US, and virtually everywhere in between. And on this trip we went to the very end of the westernmost numbered road in the US, a road in Homer Alaska that is very nearly on the same latitude as the Hawaii Islands! 

Homer AK nearly due north of Hawaii

After all this travel in our great country, I have reflected on it, and have an opinion [imagine that] that I would like to share: there is not much of our land east of the Mississippi River that is worthy of visiting more than once. Out West is where it’s at! For there, you have towering mountains, many that are snow covered year-round. There are raging rivers, high plains, the Grand Canyon, deserts, vast forests, mysterious rock formations and even rumbling volcanoes. And then Out West there is the western flavor to good old Americana: cowboys and, yes, Indians, what is left of Route 66, gold mines, ghost towns and old Spanish architecture. Just consider our last jaunt through The West. We crossed the border into Washington and passed over the bridge at the majestic Grand Coulee Dam. The road opened into a vast expanse of farmland, wheat fields as far as the eye could see, more wheat fields than Iowa cornfields. But this may not be fair to Iowa, for out here there are rolling hills. And once at the crest of a hill, someone has moved the horizon back, and you can actually see a much greater distance. The wheat fields of Washington soon became the fields of future McDonald’s French fries, as the vastness was now filled with endless potato plants in Idaho. We spent the night in Coure D’Alene ID and started east on

I-90. This mountainous road leading toward Missoula MT may be the loveliest stretch of highway that we have traveled in the US. [This is interesting, since the previous highway to be so characterized by us is also in Idaho, US 93 from Butte to Sun Valley]. Montana brought us more open space views, big sky, with fields of cattle, not crops. Farther on we entered Utah with its Great Salt Lake off to the west, and traveling eastward from Salt Lake City we passed through the mining region and into high desert, then open dry deserts near the fabulous canyon lands and Moab. Eastward still into Colorado, we passed through towering rock canyons formed eons ago by the Colorado River alongside I-70. Then onward and upward into the Rocky Mountains, where our 400 HP engine had her tongue hanging out by the time we crested the 11,000 foot pass at the Eisenhower tunnel entrance. And down we drove into the flat lands of eastern Colorado and Kansas with still more farmland. It is about here every time that I start getting bored as I drive, as the terrain remains essentially unchanged and uninspiring for hundreds of miles. But then, there is something really weird about I-35, which we recently crossed, the Interstate highway running north-south and dissecting the country. We have crossed it many times and it is nearly the same effect wherever we have crossed it, whether near Dallas, Kansas City or Minneapolis. It is as if the Master Artist has painted the landscapes on the west side of I-35 in brown tones [all the way to the west coast], but then on the east side, has chosen a green palette for His works for the remainder of the travel. But, entering the land of green trees and grass is very nice indeed. So, if you have not yet driven much Out West, you should surely put it on your bucket list. And enjoy the ride.

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