If you gotta go

Civilisation - a small town appears out of nowhere. It’s Truchee by Lake Tahoe and that means only 2237 miles to go, and that’s just to Chicago. We are now in Nevada and its prairie country. Flat, sandy (or salty ?) desert-like terrain with a few hills either side but otherwise not a very interesting landscape. Now it changes again with the hills moving in and the plain between them getting narrower. Next stop Winnemucca, wherever that is. Wonder what’s over “them thar hills”. I can see truckers in the distance along a flat straight road, moving in a line like ducks at a shooting gallery.

It’s 3.30 in the morning and I’m awake as we arrive in Salt Lake City, Utah. We stop here and can get out to stretch our legs. The next time I wake up it’s raining and everything is a sort of slimey limey colour - it’s not very pretty.

Now we’re climbing our way up the valley again, closely following the river. Over the crest onto a more dessert-like landscape with telegraph poles leaning, blown by the wind, and a wall of rock perfectly squared off like a giant cut-out. The train slows down and stops at Green River, which is Hicksville, Utah.

Next we’re in Colorado, canyon country, Glenwood Springs to be precise - the stop for Aspen. Onwards and upwards we follow the river into Colorado Canyon. Magnificent, absolutely mind-blowing. Its hard to believe that this was all done by nature. As Peter Cook would say ”What a wonderful thing it is nature - a truly wonderful thing”

From here to Denver it’s a slow journey due to work on the line, some of which is single-track, and we have to keep stopping. What should have taken 6 hours took 8, but can’t complain - I couldn’t have spent the time in more beautiful surroundings

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 8:56 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.