I-70 and Denver

Surely one of the most spectacular Interstate drives in America is the I-70 corridor from Richfield, UT and east to Green River, UT. This marvelous piece of road is an engineering marvel, and winds through a portion of Utah that not only is adjacent to several of the spectacular red rock national parks in Utah, but argueably should be a national park itself. 

We had a beautiful day to do this drive, and as we were doing so, we were reminiscing that we drove this section of I-70 with our kids exactly 40 years ago, returning from Los Angeles and Disneyland, stopping in Denver to visit my parents before returning to Minneapolis. Much of the road was two lane only, and there is one section that, even today, is 100 miles without any services. I can still see the sign 40 years ago warning travelers that there are  "no services for 100 miles", placed near the last gas station. There still aren't any services, but there are improved parking spots along the way. The initial I-70 road - two lanes - was completed in the early '70s, but the final two lanes, making it a 4 lane road, were not completed until about 1990 to Interstate standards. It is maybe the only Interstate route to go where there was no pre-existing highway. There are sections of this roadway that are jaw dropping for the engineering that was required to put a road like this through this region.

Here are a couple of photos, but they don't nearly do this region justice.

I-70 begins/terminates at Cove Fort, UT at the western end. There is a stone building there, maintained by the Mormons, an early Mormon outpost built at the request of Brigham Young.

We stayed that night in Green River, UT. There isn't much left of this town, but as we drove around we saw these two wonderful vehicles.

A view of the Green River.

Our next day was the drive from Green River to Denver which, as many know, goes over Vail Pass and under Loveland Pass through the Eisenhower Tunnel. We knew that our timing could not have been better. We were racing a storm that had already dumped a foot of snow in Salt Lake City and even more than that in the Utah mountains. But our drive was without incident. I will say that this is an exciting drive in a motorhome! Gary has to watch the temperature gauge carefully to avoid over heating the engine on the inclines. We had no problems. We just get in the truck lanes and plow along.

We had a great, albeit short visit in Denver with my brother John and his wife Nancy, and their daughter (my niece) Amy, her husband Joel, and my great niece Alyson and great nephew Jake. We met John, Nancy, Alyson and Jake for a fun time in Boulder to see a Lego exhibit in Old Main on the Colorado University campus, a replica of the old part of the campus. We were so busy looking that I forgot to take any photos!

I did snap a few of the beautiful Colorado University campus.

Gary and I "met" at CU in the summer of '62 while we were both taking summer classes. We didn't actually know one another at Grinnell until after that summer. John's and my dad graduated from CU in 1932.

We had a lovely pizza dinner at Amy and Joel's house that night. Here is a photo of this terrific family with these two darling kids.

Meanwhile, the storm was coming, and come it did the next morning. We got up, saw heavy wet snow on the ground at the RV park, looked at the weather forecast, and decided to leave one day early. We got going pretty fast but not until Gary had to get up on the roof and clear the awnings over the RV slides of heavy wet snow so we could get the slides closed! It was not great driving through Denver, but by the time we got out near the airport, the snow was gone. We did drive in rain on and off throughout the day, but that is no big deal. Heavy wet snow makes RV travel challenging.

We are currently in Des Moines, IA, and expect to be home late tomorrow. It is raining now and will probably rain on us tomorrow, but at least it is not snow!