Whistling along the Colorado River, Part 1

And grumbling about things left behind

I have taken four substantial road trips in the douchewagon I acquired just over four years ago, including the one I’m nearing the middle of now. The first two of these trips, in the precovidian springs of 2018 and 2019, were eastward to New Hampshire and back, with ample detours and stops in the outbound legs of each; on both of these trips, I used I-70 to endure Kansas en route to sea level and I-76 to tolerate Nebraska on the steady ascent back toward the convergence of these paths near Denver. The two major differences between these two long adventures: In the 2019 version, I had Rosie with me, and the car also suffered a flat tire before I even got out of Colorado (and the added fifty pounds of animated flesh that March was probably not to blame).

Last May, with almost no advance planning, only a rough mental outline of where I’d be going, and my own home as the ultimate destination, I took Rosie on what wound up being a counterclockwise path with a radius large enough to swing us through south-central Montana, southeastern Idaho, and eastern Utah. I had never been to Idaho or Montana before, and experiencing those places—visually and culturally pleasing parts of them, despite iffy weather—meant that I had only five states left to visit if I wanted to see all fifty.

I was in a dim place when I took that trip, although that was offset by knowing my mother would be arriving in Colorado for the first time shortly before Memorial Day. That detail also imposed a deadline on my return to Boulder, which forced me to construct at least a loose itinerary on the go. Afterward, and having enjoyed my mom’s five-day visit, I was glad I went, even though an accurate framing of the journey would be that of a trucker who hauls a load of unresolved conflicts and resentments in a circular path up and down various sub-ranges of the Rockies, knowing all the while that whatever he managed to offload along the way would be replaced by similar ballast before he even got home.

I was in a darker place when I decided on Thursday to take another trip, this one in a southwesterly arc, or close. I had previously left home in the douchewagon headed northeast, southeast (sort of), and northwest, so now I could complete the last quadrant of a geographical rectangle-like figure. It also makes sense in mid-February to reduce your latitude if that of your home base is precisely 40 degrees north (within a few seconds).

Between the time I decided I would leave mid-morning on Friday and the time I got to where I am now on Friday afternoon, I received a few more pieces of adverse input, some more tangible than others. I would have gotten this input no matter where I was, but knowing that most of it was probably coming and why was one of the reasons I elected to head out I-70 toward Utah. I’ll spare the details for a later post in this impromptu miniseries, or perhaps defer them in perpetuity. Suffice it to say that when things of potential value seem to be slipping away, I make sure to give them a good stomp just to make sure they wind up in pieces.

There was (and is) another obstacle in the way of my having any kind of rejuvenating journey. My car, despite being far better maintained than it appears, is not suitable at this point for long highway trips because the passenger side window seal reliably starts to fail at around 70 MPH, leaving me with the option of either slowing down to eliminate a persistent whistling noise or opening the window and tolerating a roar instead. While I realize that modern rubber and glassware most likely allow for an easy fix, I really have no need to drive over 70 MPH and, unrelatedly, have no intention of dumping any more money into the douchewagon for discretionary fixes (definition mine).

This mechanical defect has a cascading biological effect. Rosie loves to travel by car. She enjoys sitting in curious positions in the passenger seat, alternating dozing off while staring at me with gazing at the passing, distant sameness out the window. Occasionally, she’ll clamber into the back seat for a nap, but more often she’ll stay in the front and start to whimper when she decides the scenery is overly repetitive (or at least that’s my interpretation). She is also high-strung, even when generally content at any moment. She’ll start to whimper when she senses anxiety on the part of her chauffeur, and said anxiety is a near-invariable result of the window seal on Rosie’s side doing its +/- 70 MPH whistling thing. So, when I go too fast, which is often below the posted speed limit on U.S. Interstate and other highways, I am treated to a dispiriting high-pitched duet of Rosie’s whimpering-whining and the window’s whistling. Meanwhile, I’m the biggest bitch in the car.

Happily, however, because of the season as well as the nature of I-70 westward from metro Denver across the Rockies, almost no one does, or even safely can, drive across Colorado even on clear midwinter days at much more than a mile a minute, on average. So, I wouldn’t have to even worry about all those sounds signified by words starting with “w” pissing me off during the drive, at least on day one. I knew I would be stopping in Grand Junction after about four hours of driving.

After we passed through Golden and reached the interstate, we started climbing. I had only been out this way twice in my life despite the standing proximity of the real mountains. In July 2010, I was a passenger in a Sentra that broke down just after leaving the western side of the Eisenhower Tunnel en route to Vail. We got a tow to Vail and then back to Boulder, with a nice effort in between at the Vail Hill Climb by the unperturbed owner of the Sentra. Then, in August 2014, I traveled quite a bit farther west along I-70, to Glenwood Springs, before heading south and back east to Snowmass for a wedding. The return trip to Boulder that time included a drive east across Independence Pass on CO-82 and then a swing north through Leadville, where I was treated to a fine view of Mount Massive while ingesting a memorably massive burger.

When I drove though the Eisenhower Tunnel on Friday, it occurred to me that the air inside that tube was the highest Rosie has, to my knowledge ever breathed, as the interior reaches 11,354' above sea level.

After we passed Glenwood Springs, the Colorado River, the source of which is Grand Lake, appeared on our right. This river attends I-70 for the entire long descent toward Grand Junction, as one would expect—where else would such an ambitious highway be placed except alongside whatever major waterways available? This led me to consider, during a mostly whine- and whistle-free hour or so of driving, the major and mostly background role Rio Colorado plays in the American consciousness. I will save that perspective for a later installment. It’s become my main draw as I decide where else to head after this.

We settled into the motel at about 3:30 p.m. on Friday and went for a run right away. We almost immediately found an irrigation canal to run alongside and some pleasant neighborhoods to loop through on the way back to our lodgings. I decided to upgrade, or make a lateral hospitality move, to a different chain of no-frills motel than my accustomed chain; the major difference is that people who smoke weed in their rooms in this place make at least a bad effort to hide it rather than opening their doors and stepping out mostly naked to exhale.

I’ve been here a day and a half, enough time to judge this as a nice town. I know this primarily from the way Rosie and I are greeted by strangers (some of whom, granted, are also staying in one of the many area motels). But there are other signs, too.

But if you read The New York Times, Grand Junction is a place where right-wing zealots tote their kids to Trump rallies (seriously, the name of this one is “The Children at the Trump Rallies”) and listen to the most yokel-esque pastors in America spout stereotypical tripe in support of The Donald. If you read the Washington Post, the Trump administration’s decision to move the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management there was racist, even though almost all of the land the BLM (no, not the megascam or the associated mass “awakening”) is concerned with is in or a lot closer to Colorado than to D.C. and people in Grand Junction need jobs, too. And in related accounts, the many Grand Junction taxpayers in the oil and gas industry go to work every day more intent on accelerating climate and environmental havoc just to annoy the left than on feeding their families.

We did and saw some stuff on Saturday, too. For now, a few pictures from a park in “GJ” through which the Colorado passes.