Utah, Colorado, then Nebraska

A long string of high mesas loom dramatically over the town of Grand Junction in western Colorado, making one think, this would be a good place to live. I took the I-70 business loop to see a bit of the largish town. At a stoplight beside a park where homeless people congregated, a middle-aged man held a cardboard sign that read, "Why lie, I could use some beer."

Earlier I had passed through the town of Green River in Utah, then along the spectacular Book Cliff Mesas just north of Arches and Canyonlands. I gazed longingly to my right, southwards towards the parks, but resolutely if sadly ignored the turn-offs when they came, and continued on an eastward track.

The Rockies in Colorado were impressive too, but the I-70 corridor through the mountains is also disappointing. The highway is stuffed down in the bottom of narrow, spectacular canyons, following the Colorado River for some distance, and I couldn't help but think a mistake had been made--even if it made it easier and faster for me to cross the mountains. Farther east, I came into the ski resort region, where hordes of condominiums and multi-million dollar chalets clog the valley bottoms and march up the steep mountain sides. I felt excluded by the obvious wealth, put off by the development--which is far from finished, apparently, judging from the construction cranes looming over Vail "village." The urge to stop and explore, which had been with me since the California desert, dissipated considerably.

The van slowed on the long climbs in the mountains, till I was sometimes in second gear, trudging along at thirty miles per hour in the far right lane reserved for the big trucks. The arm of the temperature gauge also climbed, and I turned on the heat to bring it back down a bit. I tried listening to sports radio from Denver, but it turns out I don't give a shit about the Broncos. I put on a Trollope novel, Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, but the plot was too similar to that of The Prime Minister, and I had no patience with the notion that it's important for one's daughter to marry an English genetleman and not a foreign Jew adventurer.

I had stopped in Glenwood Springs for gas and a bean and cheese burrito from Jilbertitos, a small strip mall restaurant with the menu on the wall behind the counter, a young Hispanic woman taking orders, and young Hispanic men dusty from the morning's construction work sitting eating at the tables. An hour later I could barely keep my eyes open. When on a long-distance drive, I have various techniques for fighting through fatigue, but on this occasion I soon gave in. I pulled off into a "parking only" rest area, put down the bed in back, and passed out for an hour. VW vans are awesome.

Denver is an ugly city, I'm afraid. I switched from I-70 to I-76, and passed through without stopping. Out on the plains, the afternoon was hot and humid, the land less appealing than I usually find it. Any lingering desire to stop had completely gone.

In a Julesburg rest area, just before the Nebraska border, a man followed me from the bathroom back towards the parking area. "Is that your Westy?" he asked, referring to the van. "We haven't seen any others for days," he said and gestured at his own VW camper van, a blue one, parked nearby. "Yours is a '91, right?" he said. "So's ours."

He was about thirty, bald and compact, on a two week trip with his wife. They live in D.C. They'd gone up to Vermont first, then come westwards, with their dog, "which means we travel about 450 miles a day tops, that's about all she can handle."

I asked where they were heading. and he said, "we're here," an answer that gave me pause. They had come all this way for Julesburg, a tiny town on the Plains in the northeastern corner of Coloado? But no, by "here" he meant the whole state. They had friends in Boulder and were going that way.

He asked about my van, if everything worked, the refrigerator and stove and so on. "Yes," I said, "they work." Actually, I don't really know. "But I haven't been using them," I admitted. "I'm just driving right now, going home after two months away."

He seemed disappointed in me, but tried again, shifting the topic to gas mileage. "What are you getting?" he asked, not waiting for an answer before naming their own score. "Our top mileage has been 22.9 miles per gallon." He nodded, indicating that this was impressive, and I backed him up, agreeing, yes, that was excellent.

We both fell silent, looking out at our vehicles; I sensed he wanted more from me, but I was feeling tired, bored and boring. The bonding was inadequate and incomplete, I knew, but I couldn't help him. "We're thinking of staying here tonight," he said, trying again and maybe hinting that I should stay too. I gazed out over the parking lot and said, "yes, this would be a good place I think, not too well lit." But I wasn't staying. We said good-bye and I drove on.

After dark, the am radio world expanded. I found stations from Oklahoma City and Texas, but the talk shows were all vitriol and sarcasm. John Edwards, that piece of shit hypocrite. I tuned in an am station from the Twin Cities and listened to the Twins game.

East of North Platte, I pulled into a rest area, set up my bed in back, and soon and easily fell asleep.