Beth Deitchman's Blog, page 5

Glenwood Springs and Beyond

I could live in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, death place of Doc Holliday and home of the best Greek omelette I have ever eaten.  After four days of staying almost in the middle of nowhere (except for Salt Lake City, but we were so far outside the city we might as well have been in the middle of nowhere), it was so refreshing to stay in a little tourist town, especially since it was not swarming with tourists.

We arrived pretty early yesterday afternoon and checked into the lovely Hotel Denver.  Once we finished unpacking (ish) and had a quick lunch, we set off on a short hike to the burial place of Doc Holliday (in case you can’t remember who he is, Val Kilmer played him in Tombstone).  Although the hike to the cemetery was only a half a mile, we were exhausted by the time we got there.  The trail (more of a path really) was steep and exposed to the sun, which is much stronger here.  Not to mention the altitude of 5,700 (ish) feet.

Once we reached the cemetery and recovered enough to explore, we discovered that Doc Holliday’s grave isn’t clearly marked.  Apparently he died a pauper and is thought to be buried in Potter’s field with a wooden cross–long since rotted–to mark his grave.  So we settled for a picture of Dave at a grave in the cemetery that holds Doc Holliday’s remains:

Then somewhat disappointed and really hot we headed back to the hotel to rest.  (It is a really nice picture of Dave and Ralphie, though).

The remainder of the day was uneventful–except for a trip to the grocery store, which wasn’t so much eventful as exhausting as I chose to walk the seven blocks.  I almost scoffed when the nice lady at the reception suggested that I might prefer to drive, thinking to myself, “seven blocks? please!  That’s nothing.”  Turns out that seven blocks uphill in the sun at 5,700 feet is more daunting than I could have imagined.  But I did it.  And I made it back in one piece.  Shortly thereafter I was asleep in a chair with my book on my lap.  And I was pretty much done for the rest of the day.

But after a really good night’s sleep, I felt much better.  The headache that had been bothering me all day on Wednesday was gone.  Relieved that I didn’t have altitude sickness, I was ready to face the day.  (I almost called this post “Altitude Sickness” because I looked up the symptoms on the Internet.  It’s what I do.)  Dave, Ralphie, and I took a really nice stroll by the river before heading to breakfast at a little coffee shop with outside seating.  It was the first restaurant we’d been able to bring Ralphie to because of its outside seating.  And that is where I had the best Greek omelette I’ve ever had.

Fortified with a solid breakfast, we were ready to pack up and head to Denver (Highlands Ranch to be more specific).  The drive here included some truly spectacular scenery.  But you’ll have to take my word for it because we didn’t stop to take any pictures.  We didn’t stop for anything because I wanted to get here and be done with the driving for a while.  I-70 took us through the mountains, which meant a lot of up and down driving; our car strained on the uphill but seemed to enjoy the downhill.  I really liked passing 10,000 feet at the Vail pass.  We spend most of our time at around 23 feet above sea level, so these high altitudes make a nice change.

We spent the afternoon with Dave’s family, which was really lovely.  Our nephews Cory and Clark were both there.  We had not seen Cory since he was 12 and he just graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder.  The last time we saw Clark he was about 6 months old.  Now he’s almost five.  They’ve both changed a lot.  After dinner we took a family walk to the park where Dave and Cory threw a frisbee around for a while.  Cory has always been a really athletic guy and it shows.  But Uncle Dave held his own!  Clark loves to play Lego Star Wars on the Wii that his grandparents bought for him.  So Dave and Clark played together.  Uncle Dave also held his own with Clark.

Ralphie enjoyed wandering around Dave’s parents house sniffing things.  Then he enjoyed running around in the backyard where he found and killed a plastic soccer ball that was meant for Clark.  Luckily Clark didn’t seem to care (or notice).  And now Ralphie is sacked out on the couch in our room.  It’s almost like home, with me on one end with my computer and Dave on the other with his and Ralphie stretched between us, taking up most of the room.  We’re staying in a Residence Inn, which is nice because there’s so much more space and we have a little kitchen.  It’s good to know that we’ll be in the same place for the next several nights before we turn around and head home.

Double Dream Hands

Here’s what I learned today: 1. the Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack is really good; 2. I can’t remember this one; neither can Dave; and 3. Utah is prettier than Nevada.

We left Salt Lake City around 9:00 this morning headed for Green River, Utah.  As we were leaving Salt Lake, we started listening to the Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack.  Ah the memories of the 1980s; you know what I mean: “When I’m a-walkin’ I strut my stuh-uff and I’m so strung out!”  At one point I turned to Dave (figuratively rather than literally since I had to keep my eyes on the road) and asked if it makes me old to say that the music of the 80s is soooo much better than that crap the kids listen to today.  Dave just smiled, or so I think because I couldn’t look at him. (You’re still singing, aren’t you?)  Salt Lake City traffic, while nothing like Bay Area traffic, was still heavier than anything we had faced since leaving San Rafael and I needed to concentrate.  But eyes on the road doesn’t necessarily mean hands on the wheel, and I know he didn’t appreciate my double dream hands to Under Pressure.  (If you don’t know what I mean by double dream hands, have a look at this.)

I wish I could remember what the second thing I learned today was.  I told Dave my list of things, but he can’t remember them either.  It drove me crazy for a while, but it’s gone, and without a pensieve it’s not likely to return.  So let’s pretend the second thing I learned today is that Salt Lake City will be hosting the annual Princess Festival from June 19-30.  I wasn’t able to learn much about the festival from the giant billboards lining the freeway, so I Googled it.  If you didn’t feel like clicking on the link, here’s what the website says about the festival:

A place of enchantment where Princesses learn to become everything they dream while making the world a better place.
Our mission is to touch the hearts of young girls and communities to empower them in acts of service, kindness, and courage through the creative engagement of imaginative characters, stories, and events.

This sounds much better than what I thought it would be–a baby beauty pageant with little girls all made up like creepy little dolls.  I’m hoping we can check it out as we pass through on our way home, but we probably won’t be able to with Ralphie.  I also don’t know if it’s open to gawkers.

As for item number three, Utah is prettier than Nevada, well, it just is.  To be fair to Nevada, we had to drive by Reno, which depresses the crap out of me.  When I moved to California in 1998, my friends David and Dan accompanied me from my dad’s house in Pennsylvania.  We stretched the journey cross-country into a nine day road trip that included a brief stop for lunch in Reno. ( I think the plan had once included spending the night in Reno, but all three of us decided just to press on to Davis.)  I hate casinos.  Row after row of old people playing the slots; isn’t that depressing? I’ve never been to Las Vegas but I can only imagine that it is ten times worse.  Anyway, the Nevada that lines 80 after sad Reno is barren, desolate wasteland with tire store clerks who insist that you should buy new tires now.

Utah also has some barren, desolate parts, but the rock formations that line those parts are spectacular.  Here’s an example of what I mean:

See how blue the sky is?  And how beautiful that big rocky thing in the background is?  All morning we saw stuff like that.  This picture hardly captures the amazing stuff we saw today.

But, also to be fair to Nevada, because we stuck to I-80, we only saw the tiniest bit of the state’s northern part.  Samantha (the GPS) chose a more interesting route from Salt Lake City to Green River.  Instead of taking I-15 to I-70 as AAA suggested, we followed Samantha’s instructions, which put us on US 6 / US 191.  In other words, we meandered through a bigger cross-section of Utah.

On the other hand, prettier doesn’t mean much when you are a food snob looking for dinner.  There is one grocery store in Green River and it didn’t have much in the way of prepared food.  I think we’re going to be eating peanut butter on rice cakes for dinner.  And that’s cool.  Tomorrow we’re going to Glenwood Springs, CO; surely they’ll have snobby food places, right?

So there you go.  That’s what I learned today on the drive from Salt Lake City to Green River.  As you might have gathered from this post, I also learned how to put links and pictures into the text of my blog.  If you are wondering why it took so long, it’s because I’m predisposed to resist all things technological.  But now that I know how embarrassingly easy adding stuff to my blog is, there will be more pictures and links from now on.  I promise.

New Tires

There is a possibility that Dave and I got scammed today.  We pulled into a Shell Station in Wells, Nevada to take care of important road trip business.  As Dave was pumping gas, a guy from the tire store attached to the gas station approached the car and examined our tires.  He looked very serious.  Then he told Dave that the right front tire was pretty close to blowing out.  Being more afraid of blowing a tire than being scammed, we let them put the car up on the fancy car lifting thing to take a closer look.  That, naturally, led to us spending a shit load of money to replace all four tires.

We both had to admit as we drove away from Wells that the ride seemed much smoother. So, despite assurances from our trusted mechanic Scott that our tires would survive the trip to Denver, we chose to believe we were not scammed.  I’m pretty okay with that choice.  I mean, the nice men in Wells saved me the trouble of getting new tires later in the summer, which I knew I would probably have to do.  And I can feel relatively safe on the rest of the drive.

Of course, that’s not the only that thing that happened today.  We also found a Whole Foods in Salt Lake City (which actually has three Whole Foods), so we felt much better about our food situation.  On the way here we saw the Bonneville salt flats, which are seriously cool.  On the way back we’ll stop and get out since we’ll have more time going that direction.  At least we should have more time because we already have new tires. (I’m knocking on wood to make sure that nothing else happens). And we passed the Great Salt Lake, which is really big.  And blue.  And, I imagine, salty.

Tonight we’re staying outside Salt Lake City proper, so there will be no trips to see the Mormon Mother Ship, but I’m not broken hearted about that.  Both Dave and I have already seen it and I doubt that Ralphie cares (although who knows what appealing scents may surround the Mother Ship).  But we did get to wander around and get some much-needed exercise this evening.  There’s a nice little man-made lake near the hotel that we walked around after dinner.  I’m pretty sure that there are pelicans living in that lake.  I like pelicans.

I’m hoping to get to sleep earlier tonight.  I had some trouble last night because the room was so noisy–between the air conditioner, the refrigerator, and, I swear, the guy snoring in the room next door, I stood no chance.  So, once again, Dave saved the day with his Android.  He downloaded some white noise–ocean sounds–to play so that I could sleep. The man deserves a medal because he handles every situation with such ease.  We’re lost in the woods?  No problem!  I’ve got Google Maps!  My wife can’t sleep because of all the noise?  No problem!  I’ve got Google Play!

Tomorrow we head for Green River, Utah where we plan to have a picnic and take a hike in the woods.  With the Android, of course.

 

Battle Mountain, Nevada

Day two on the road and we’re in the middle of nowhere, staying in a hotel near the freeway in Battle Mountain, Nevada, which is apparently half way to nearly everywhere.  At least that’s what the billboard said.  And if a billboard says it’s so, well, then I guess it must be so, especially since the one I saw featured a picture of the Sphinx.

We left Truckee this morning around 9:30.  But we were up really early because Ralphie seems to think that wherever we sleep is home, and since his self-appointed job at home involves barking at things outside to keep us safe inside, he was busy.  We woke up many times to a low rumble that turned out to be Ralphie growling.  We finally had to get up  when Captain Vigilance started pacing and barking.

It was a really, really cold morning.  I mean, ice on the roof of our car cold.  Seeing your breath cold.  Freaking. Cold.  I did a fair amount of bitching about this cold as we hiked in the lovely Truckee wilderness.  So Dave, who was wearing short sleeves, told me that I would never have survived 100 years ago, and I said well, I probably would have died from asthma.  But, I continued, asthma is more prevalent now so maybe I wouldn’t have had it then.  So I would have died from the cold.  By then we had stepped into the sun, which was seriously warm.  So I stopped bitching and looked at the snow-capped mountains.  It really was lovely and worth braving the cold to see.

By the time we finished breakfast and checked out of the hotel, the ice had disappeared from the car.  When we were loaded up and ready, we headed out for Reno.  Dave found a food co-op there through the Google and we wanted to load up with some healthy deli stuff for lunch and dinner, knowing as we did, that there’s nothing but a McDonald’s in Battle Mountain.  (To be fair, there seems to be a pizza and steak house, but they don’t look terribly great.)  Unfortunately, despite the many wonderful things to be found in the little co-op (that we thought was closed because the parking lot was empty), they didn’t have a prepared foods section, so our dreams of fresh carrot and celery root salad or roasted beet salad were dashed.

That’s how we ended up, briefly, in Fernly, Nevada, a place so wretched neither of our electronic devices could tell us how to get to the grocery store, Scolari’s, we had discovered on the Google.  Samantha (our new GPS thingy) told us to turn left when we got off 80, but Google maps said we should go right, which turned out to be the correct option.  But then Google maps took us to a dead end in a sad little neighborhood and said we’d arrived at our destination.  Since there was nothing even vaguely resembling a grocery store in this dead end, the human at the wheel decided to turn the car around and see if the generic shopping center we had passed earlier might have anything useful.

I guess our robot friends just wanted us to avoid Scolari’s because, well, we are spoiled food snobs who live in Marin County, home to Good Earth Grocery Store, Mighty Leaf Tea, and lots of other fabulous things (like the company in Mill Valley that makes artisanal gluten-free granola using organic quinoa and a host of other organic ingredients–delicious with almond milk–see what I mean about the food snobbery?).  Scolari’s proved to be disappointing.  And I’ll leave it at that.

Once the car had gas, the coolers had ice, and we had lots of water, we hit the road again.  There’s not a lot to look at on the drive from Fernly to Battle Mountain besides the occasional rock formation.  But there’s so much empty space.  Both Dave and I keep remarking on how big our country is.  It’s been a while since I’ve been in this part of the country, but I can’t get over how much room there is to spread out.

We passed the time on the drive listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, which makes great road trip listening.  (Or sitting and knitting listening in case you wondered.)  We made it to our hotel by around 4:30, took the Ralphster for a little walk into “downtown” Battle Mountain, then returned to our room for some dinner (which included that lovely quinoa granola).

And now I’m starting to doze, like the mister and the puppy on the other side of the giant bed in our hotel room.  I think that means it’s time to say good night as it is a really late 7:30.  Who knows what time Ralphie will be up tomorrow?  There’s a group of people cycling across America staying here, too, and they’ll probably be out at first light, which means we will, too.

Tomorrow we leave Nevada and her slot machines in grocery stores behind and make it to Utah.  I’m looking forward to seeing the salt flats again.