Usually I set my GPS for shortest route on ass-busting drives like this one (Laramie to Phoenix) but somehow the setting was changed to stun–as in most stunning route.
I took I-70 clear across Colorado. I drove over Loveland Pass and through the Eisenhower tunnel, which is also 40 this year AND which goes under the continental divide. At over 11,000 ft, the Dwight D is the highest “vehicular tunnel” in the United States. There was snow on the mountain.
Then I dove down into the foresty clear creek valley. I zoomed past a guy with a giant camera taking pictures of bighorns on the side of the road. There was also this amazing section of Hwy 6/I-70, just before Fruita that had amazing canyon walls and the Colorado River alongside it.
Now, I’ve stopped in Moab because I’m tired, it’s dark, and I don’t want to miss the views in the morning.
Highlights: a Western kingbird at a viewpoint just over the Utah border and the sounds down in a little canyon of ravens craw-crawing and magpies wraack-wraacking; a great vulture swoop across the road; the sunset against red canyons in the distance.
I drove over buckled up mountains and washed out flatlands and wrinkled forests and scrubbed ancient ocean beds. Not bad for a Monday.