Once In A Lifetime

“You may ask yourself

Where does that highway go to?

And you may ask yourself

Am I right, am I wrong?

And you may say to yourself

My God, what have I done?”

- Talking Heads

I generally know the answer to the first question, thanks to all of the myriad GPS trackers and maps at my fingertips on this phone. The last two questions have been asked repeatedly over the past 3 1/2 months and I don’t have the answers for either. Tonight I find myself in a mini moment of panic. The last two days have been relatively easy, within the parameters of this undertaking. Shorter days, pretty nice downhills, early to the hotels and time to rest. That’s a good thing. For all of that, I have managed to effectively put myself at the base of the Rocky Mountains in western Colorado, with no realistic options other than to go up and over. Sadly, it’s a bit too late for another sanity check.

Aside from the end result - which I’ve seen coming for a couple weeks now - today was a very entertaining day. I’m in an area known as the “Dinosaur Diamond” because it contains loads of dinosaur fossils, and the area is loosely shaped like a diamond. Interestingly enough, Dinosaur National Monument is NOT located within this area. It is just to the north of here and home to large fossil beds. Even more interesting, I thought, was the car with the Louisiana license plate that passed by me on the road this morning. He went a couple hundred yards past me and then pulled on to the shoulder and got out. He walked around the car to let his dog out for a potty break. No leash and 2500 square miles of ready made dog toilet. He was in heaven. I thought that was that, but as I rode past, he asked me how far I was going and how far I’d come. I stopped and, because of the Louisiana plate, I told him I had started in Louisiana. It turns out he is from New Orleans and a seasonal Park Ranger at the monument, living in Colorado. In our impromptu roadside conversation, I learned that he had once kayaked the entire length of the Mississippi River from Minnesota to Louisiana. We talked for several minutes and he said he always offers bikers a place to stay. I would have gladly taken him up on it if it wouldn’t have extended tomorrow’s ride by an extra 20 miles. The NOLA connection made me remember that it is my old friend Andrea Neighbours’ birthday. She and her husband Andy live there and when I texted her a birthday wish, she reminded me how emotionally crushed she was that I had opted for Shreveport of all places to start this journey instead of New Orleans.

I went another few miles and crossed the border into Colorado. I noticed a couple of things instantly. First, the shoulder was newly paved and very wide, compared to Utah where the shoulders were often non-existent or cracked and crumbling. Second, the litter that lined the Utah highways was dramatically reduced, although to be fair, not completely gone. To me, Utah will simply be known as the Trash Dump of the West. Without doubt, when you look up and around, Utah is stunningly beautiful. The powers that be within the state must assume that nobody will look down. Sadly for me, at the slow speeds I travel at, particularly going uphill, there is simply too much time not to look down.

I pressed on and within 3 miles after entering Colorado, I was in the town of Dinosaur. They totally embrace it, as I entered town on Brontosaurus Blvd. and exited on Stegosaurus Fwy. The dinosaur replicas were all around town, as they had been where I had stayed last night as well. I stopped in at the Loaf and Jug c-store and got a large Coke. I went to pay and the clerk asked me if that was it. I told him yes and he simply said “Have a nice day” and wouldn’t let me pay. I had now met 2 people from Colorado. One offered me a place to stay and the other wouldn’t let me pay for my drink. While I realize this is probably an unsustainable pace of friendliness, that combined with the improved cleanliness results in the equation Colorado > Utah.

I don’t know for sure, but I doubt the dinosaurs were that colorful in reality.

One last shot of the “above ground level” view of Utah in the “Dinosaur Diamond”

#42

I told you they take it seriously.

Ok, this might take the cake for worst of its kind. And yes, those clouds you see did bring rain. What can I say?