Long and winding road, canyon bound
So the drive to Durango definitely did not go as planned. When I initially mapped the route it showed I would be doing a roughly 780 mile drive going from Oklahoma City to Durango if we included Dodge City Kansas as a waypoint. The mileage was pretty accurate but unfortunately I did not take into account the mountainous terrain the drive includes, making it take FOREVER. We started at 7:30 central time and did not get to Durango until 10:30 mountain time, a horrendous 16 hours, the longest I have ever logged during a road trip in one day.
There were of course highlights along the way. We stopped in Dodge City for lunch where the temperature was at 100 degrees. We walked around an area near Boot Hill but it seemed almost everything was closed for business on Sundays.
We ate at some Italian restaurant that looked like it was just transported from 1974. The walls were covered in crooked, old pictures, the light fixtures were in various states of disrepair and every table cloth was encased in plastic sheeting. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate places like this and the charm they carry. The pizza we split was very calorie dense but very tasty.
I found myself losing my mind a bit during the endless drive. The Kansas cornfields at first got a “hey look at all that corn !” reaction. Later it turned into a “damn there are a lot of cornfields” Finally, after seeing my 10,000th cornfield it was “I hope I never see another fcking cornstalk in my life…”
Driving for this long can become very physically challenging. Even with the plush, soft captain chairs in the party van, pressure points start to hurt. My sore spots were my ass, my elbows, forearms and feet. At a certain point you are shifting your position around every couple minutes to bring relief to one area only to inflict more discomfort on another. I also was getting a one sided sunburn on my left arm and leg as the sun beat in the drivers window. Cindy gave me a long dress of hers that I used to cover the exposed skin to stop the pain.
Unfortunately, as we were getting into the most mountainous part of the drive in Colorado we were running out of daylight. Cindy was actually behind the wheel for a big part of that part of the drive. It was very challenging because of the steep inclines, followed by twisty and very steep declines. We utilized dropping the gears on the van to allow the motor to help us decelerate and avoid cooking the brakes too badly. She did a good job driving in the tough conditions.
We didn’t wind up eating dinner until after 9pm mountain time. At that time of night we had few fast options since a sit down dinner would only retard our arrival further. We grabbed our second McDonalds meal of the trip although neither of us felt great about it. Yesterday was a pretty filthy eating day, pizza for lunch and McD’s for dinner.
We were a bit shocked by the temperature swing we experienced. It was 100 degrees in Dodge City and 64 degrees in Colorado.
By the time we finally reached our hotel in Durango we were both understandably beat from logging and incredibly long day on the road. I hope to never duplicate that feat again. We fell asleep almost immediately once our heads touched the pillow.
When we woke up today we were greeted by the beauty of Durango which was hidden from us by the veil of night. The air felt cool and crisp, such a pleasant change from the never ending Naples humid summers. The hotel was nestled in between beautiful rock formations in all directions. The visual helped erase the negative energy from yesterday’s brutal drive.
The continental breakfast at the Quality Inn was served in a room that had a bar along a window that faced the front of the hotel. Cindy and I enjoyed the view as we ate breakfast.
After considering some options we decided to just go to the downtown historic area of Durango, park and walk around. It was a good choice. We walked down main street in the cool air checking out all of the sights, sounds and shops in the area. It seemed every person we talked to or dealt with was very, very nice and friendly. They all appeared to be in good moods and I can understand why. Durango seems like a really awesome place to live.
I had a little familiarity with it since my sister went to Fort Lewis college, which is located in Durango, however I had no real appreciation of just how great of an area it is. There is so much there that would be fun to do if we had the time. I could easily see spending a week there and be able to fill every moment with good experiences. Unfortunately we did not have that luxury of unlimited time, this trip is all about the Grand Canyon.
We only have a “short” 312 mile drive to the South Rim however once again the terrain is going to make that distance take a good amount of time. Our hope is to pull in to the South Rim late afternoon, giving us a chance to recover enough for our massive to the bottom and back hike to the bottom of the canyon tomorrow.
Along the way today we had the unexpected bonus of stopping at the Four Corners, where the boundaries of New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Colorado all meet. I remember stopping there on the western trip we did with my dad as a kid. It has changed a lot since then. The attraction got a facelift in 1992 and another one in 2010. It looks nothing like I remember but it was still fun to see and well worth the time spent.
This morning I was thinking about how well the party van is doing on the trip despite the average mpg of 15-17 mpg. Almost on cue, the check engine light came on during this mornings drive. I am hoping it is just some sort of O2 sensor error that can be simply attributed to the thin air. I actually have my code reader with so I can see what code is being thrown.
The next blog entry will not come until after the Great Hike, if I survive it…