I don't know what it is about road trips. It seems like everyone
I talk to has taken one (or more), wants to take one, or wishes they had taken
one. When I say “one”, of course, I mean the
one. Out west, through the vast deserts and wide river beds and snow-capped mountains
and forested valleys and Las Vegas.
It’s a classic American activity, pioneered by Horatio Nelson Jackson, who, in 1903, took 63 days to drive from San Francisco to New York. For him, it
was all for a bet. For others, it’s for escape, for contemplation, for
sight-seeing, for a girl or boy (that does actually happen), simply to get from
point A to point B, or in my case, for using up some free time and seeing a bit
more of the country. Regardless of your purpose, you get to know yourself, your
traveling companion(s), and your implement of transport. If you get out of the
car every once in a while, you come to understand the land (this goes double if
you’re a geologist). The common road trip is so much more thorough and
enlightening than flying from place to place. You meet people and do things
that you wouldn't otherwise, and you realize that “America the Beautiful” (at least the first verse) is
actually rooted in fact.
Two weeks ago I made the abrupt transition from the “wants to
take one” group to the “has taken one” club. The longest continuous road trip I
had taken previously was 1,161 miles from Freeport, Maine to Wooster, Ohio to
Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The great road trip of 2013/2014 shattered that
record, ringing in at 7,219 miles. Buckle up, folks – this is going to take a
while.
Day 1. Miles 0 – 874:
Freeport, ME to Columbus, OH
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| Ice and Gneiss: the Cushing Formation at Portland Head Light, Maine in December |
The day after Christmas, I embarked from my parents’ home in
Maine on a journey that would take me from sea to shining sea (and ¾ of the way
back). Having recently (re)acquired an extensively repaired personal automobile,
I was positively brimming with excitement to drive an extended distance. Upon
its emergence from the shop on Christmas Eve, I had been informed that the
radio (aftermarket) had a small issue: it just cut out every once in a while,
though it always came back on. I decided I could live with that and thought
nothing more of it. Then, bright and early on the 26th of December,
the radio would not turn on at all. I gave it a few minutes—warmed up the car,
drove to the bank, sat in the parking lot filled with despair—and nothing
happened.
Unhinged at the prospect of thirteen hours with nothing but the
sound of my engine I called my father (by now an unbridgeable 3 minutes away),
who recommended I swing by the shop on the way out of town. I did so, and after
two hours in the waiting room, my radio was repaired (at no cost to me, I might
add) to the point where it was fully functional (no cutting out). Apparently,
upon closer inspection, they found whatever the original issue was. Needless to
say, I was relieved. Albeit two hours late, I set out for the open (mildly
congested) road.
The trip was uneventful, with the exception of Connecticut,
whose entire population, I am convinced, drives in circles around Hartford at 5
mph from 7:30 am until they are tired and fall asleep on the freeway (somewhere
around 4:00 pm) and stop moving entirely. This did have the advantage of
cutting down on my gas usage, as the road leading into Hartford is
predominantly downhill, which allowed me to stay in neutral and just pump the
breaks occasionally. On one inclined stretch I was able to shut off my car
completely and still keep up with traffic.
Pennsylvania’s roads left me fearful for my car’s structural
integrity—at the ripe young age of 21, almost every piece of it rattles—but I
got across the state in about 5 hours and I was in Columbus in time for a
decent sleep before the real adventure started.
Day 2. Miles 874 – 1,799:
Columbus, OH to Oklahoma City, OK
I met up with my friend Matt and his Camry the next morning, and
we were off. We didn’t have plan. It was December 27th and all we
knew was that we wanted to be in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve and back in
Columbus by January 7th. The intermediate days were devoid of
stipulations. We looked at the map and headed west, deciding that we’d try to
take a route across the southwestern states by heading down I-70, I-44, and
I-40. Temperatures were warm and the driving was easy. We drove straight
through Indianapolis, which looked pleasant enough, and stayed true to course
without stopping through St. Louis, Springfield (MO), and Tulsa.
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| St. Louis from I-70 - this is about as close as we got to the cities we drove through. Photograph by Matt Hawrylak |
Though we expected the first day’s drive simply to serve as
motion through the more droll sections of the country, I was pleasantly
surprised by the hills in Missouri and unpleasantly surprised by the incredible
flatness of Oklahoma (I use the word “incredible” in the original Latin sense
of “I have seen paper with more topography”). I also discovered a happy
correlation between presence of varied topography and lack of billboards. Say what
you will about Jesus billboards and adult store ads – when there’s nothing else
to look at, they’re there to entertain you, and they’re gone as soon as the
terrain gets interesting. This is not to say I have no appreciation for America’s
heartland. Farm country has its own kind of beauty—I ought to know, as I’ve
lived in it (more or less) for the past 6 years—but it’s a kind of beauty best
viewed off the highway, and we were in a hurry to get to the cool rocks.
We made it to Oklahoma City in roughly 14 hours and decided to
drive through and stay on the western outskirts to better get an early start in
the morning. We were looking for a cheap hotel and stumbled upon a rather
sketchy-looking Motel 6. For its price, it turned out to be one of the worse
lodging investments we’d made on the trip. Although it was reasonably clean,
the wifi was barely functional, there was no hint of breakfast or coffee (I don’t
drink the stuff, but this small gesture was of infinite disappointment to Matt),
and the mattresses seemed to be made of paper and were very unstable. I had no
choice but to sleep in the center of my bed, as, if I tried, however subtly, to
crawl toward the edge, the inclination of the bed, gravity on its side, would
buttress me rather forcefully back toward the pit.
Day 3. Miles 1,799 – 2,387:
Oklahoma City, OK to Albuquerque, NM
We extracted ourselves from Motel 6 bright and early and headed
due west on I-40. Not long after getting on the highway, we observed signs for
Red Rock Canyon State Park. Certain that we were not in Nevada, Colorado, or
California (I am realized then that Red Rock must be a very common name indeed),
our curiosity steered us to where the signs pointed. After passing through the
quaint but intriguing town of Hinton, which, despite its proximity to nothing,
had a bustling main street and several wonderful old homesteads, we arrived at
the state park and found ourselves in a small parking lot overlooking what
appeared to be a very small crack in the Earth’s surface.
We soon realized, however, that the road continued. So we
descended down into the canyon, which was probably between 60 and 80 feet, and
found a short trail to hike toward the two main sources of the canyon’s stream.
While perhaps not the “outdoor adventurer’s dream” the website touts, the
canyon was a pleasant diversion. It was indeed very red, and the rocks
themselves were beautiful examples of sedimentary formations. We found a small
eroded patch where we were able to climb out of the canyon and up onto the
grasslands, where the landscape was surprisingly pure and unimpeded prairie.
The streams were not flowing, but the stream beds were still marvelous, as were
the bowl-shaped cliffs they fell into.
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| I call this one: Oklahoma Prairie with Sandstone |
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| Pool near head of Red Rock Canyon |
We got back to the car and discovered by looking at a map of the
park that the canyon, which was a winter camp for Plains Indians and a stop on
the California Trail for settlers heading west (according to the website, you
can still see the wagon ruts), carried on for a considerable distance to the
south. We had our hearts set on getting to New Mexico that night, so we forwent
the remainder of the Canyon and headed back to the interstate.
As we approached Amarillo, TX in the early afternoon, we saw
signs for another canyon – Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Having passed nothing
but some slight elevation shifts that might have vaguely been considered
rolling hills by some, we were curious and took the detour. At one hour off the
highway, it was a relatively long detour, but it was made shorter by the fact
that the roads were long, straight, and without patrol. We reached the canyon
and were astounded by what lay before us. The park’s website claims the canyon
is 120 miles long and up to 20 miles wide, making it the second largest canyon
in the US after that other famous one. The park possesses over 29,000 acres of
the canyon’s area, which was named by the Spanish and occupied by Apache,
Comanche, and Kiowa tribes before becoming a ranch in the late 19th
century.
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| East side of Palo Duro Canyon from the canyon rim |
The canyon provided us with the largest elevation difference we
had seen so far, so we drove to the bottom, where we met a local couple who
recommended a good hike from the stream to the canyon rim (roughly 800 feet).
We drove over three stream crossings (something the Camry probably wouldn't
have handled well if there had been water flowing over them at the time) to get
to the trailhead and hiked to the top via the brand new 3-mile (one way) Rock
Garden trail, which switch-backed up the canyon’s footwall and headwall before
intersecting a trail that hugged the canyon rim. It wasn't a hard trail, but it
was beautiful and offered incredible views of the canyon (which was, mind you,
spectacular). We took a slightly shorter, off-trail route back down, using
techniques we had learned over the course of our respective geology degrees to
avoid getting lost – namely, find landmarks, keep a consistent direction, and
avoid falling on cactuses. We drove out just as the sun was setting and stopped
at the visitor center on the canyon rim, where I was able to capture some
last-minute photographs.
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| Palo Duro Canyon, looking southeast at sunset |
We drove back into Amarillo, where we decided to stop for dinner
at the Burger Bar on South Polk St. The rest of the city was pretty well dead
(especially considering it was a Saturday night), so we didn't have many other
options. It wasn't the best burger I've ever had, but it’s the only green chili
burger I've ever had, and it was decent, and the fries were good. The beer
selection was thorough and included a number of local concoctions, one of which
I tried and was very satisfied.
It was still light enough as we were leaving to notice that the
rolling plains had turned into hills, and the lights of Albuquerque helped
silhouette the mountains as we traveled through Albuquerque. We couldn't see
them, but we sure were excited. It was snowing as we drove through the
mountains into the city and we got off the interstate and found a Travelodge,
where the rooms were cheap, clean, and well-appointed, and we settled in for
the night as the temperature outside dropped below zero and the snow continued
to fall.
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for part 2 in this continuing series: Smoggy
SoCal, and Other Tales
