Vernal, Utah to Rangely, Colorado. Wednesday, July 3, 2024.
Saying goodbye at last to US 191, I climbed onto US 40, an iconic road if ever there was one. Once spanning the country from Atlantic City to San Francisco, parts of it were known as the National Road (America’s first highway), the Lincoln Highway—it was often called America’s Main Street. The western part has been subsumed into I 80, it now only goes as far as Salt Lake City. Still, it was pretty cool. Dinah the Pink Dinosaur bid me farewell, apparently those eyes used to follow the cars as they went by.
US 40 seemed glorious at first with a massive shoulder, but it vanished into nothing, worse than nothing, just 1 foot wide, and that foot was filled with rumble strips so deep that you would lose control if you ventured over them. I had no choice but to ride in the main lane, and this was a major highway. Not too much traffic yet, and every truck was accommodating as it blew by, but the situation unnerved me to the point where I considered bailing right there, taking an Uber 180 miles to the nearest Amtrak station and going home. If you’ve been following this blog, you see that I’m usually pretty imperturbable when it comes to traffic, with lots of strategies for dealing with challenging situations, but a motorist at a rest stop said things only got worse as I got into the Colorado mountains. I mulled my options at the turnoff for Dinosaur National Monument, where there was a visitor information center with a helpful ranger. She was much more encouraging than that motorist, said bikes come through here not infrequently, and she’s never heard of any trouble. One of her colleagues commutes on the road daily.
I really wanted to go to the Monument. It has one of the world’s largest collections of dinosaur fossils, having supplied many of the world’s museums, and the central structure houses a slope where excavations are ongoing—they have left the bones in place so visitors can see how they appeared as they were found. I got these photos off the web.
But going there would involve a 14 mile detour with lots of hills, I was behind schedule because I had to pick up those AirPods, I still had a long way to go on an uncertain road, it was already 90°, and I decided the detour wouldn’t be prudent. Who’s the dinosaur?
The ranger was right, the shoulder broadened and stayed good. A strong tailwind pushed me so much I didn’t even realize I was going uphill. And then, in 10 miles, I crossed into Colorado.
Colorado! I saw this same sign three years ago, when I entered the state coming from Vermont, and felt the same thrill. The healthiest state in the country, the most bicycle-friendly state, home to many friends I’m eagerly anticipating visiting soon, and the crown of the Rockies, with 54 peaks over 14,000 feet. Who can sum it up better than Harve Presnell, the hero of Music Man composer Meredith Willson’s other musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, singing “Colorado My Home”?
https://youtu.be/yp8Kx2R13DQ?si=eafFA-YPprJ_Nwmg
I have to digress here. Harve Presnell was the star of many musicals in the 60s, then dropped from sight until he surfaced almost unrecognizably as Wade, the grumpy father-in-law in the Coen Brothers classic film Fargo.
Back to Colorado. Seeing that sign was like a shot in the arm. Right away, things got easier. I had thought maybe I would stop short of my goal, in the town of Dinosaur, but some very helpful burger bar patrons, Troy, Jeff, and Wally, reassured me that the last 18 miles would be easy, and so they were. Cruising into Rangely, I stopped for my celebratory root beer, and the clerk Michael pointed out a fascinating detail of this town.
An abandoned, deteriorating water tank was converted by enterprising musicians (inspired by the Chautauqua movement) into the Tank Center for the Sonic Arts, an eclectic venue with perfect acoustics some have called the Carnegie Hall of the West. https://tanksounds.org/about
Amazing. This is the kind of stuff you only get when you’re traveling at 8 mph.
Distance 55 miles, 2,715 total. Time 9 hours with stops. Elevation gain 2,085 feet
©️ 2024 Scott Luria
The Ends of the Earth 