Wooohoooo! Just writing this brings back such a feeling of excitement.
I drove from Los Angeles to Orange County to spend my final night in California at my parents house. I was so excited about driving cross country that I slept all of 2hrs before 13hr road trip. Why 13 hours, well because I wanted to make the most of everything, I had my choice to spend the night anywhere I wanted … I chose Vail, CO!
Thank god for my mom and dad who stocked up a little cooler of snacks for me to eat on the first day of my road trip adventure. Getting out of California was one of the most challenging parts of the trip, I hit fog like I have never seen before. I was going about 5 miles per hour, couldn’t see the car in front of me or behind me, we are talking blinding bright white sunrise fog. Once out of Cali I thought my first stop would be at the Coffee Bean in Vegas or maybe Roberto’s, man I miss Roberto’s & Fausto’s. To my suprise by the time I got to Vegas it just seemed so incredibly smoggy, dusty, dirty and just yuck! I couldn’t bring myself to stop in Vegas, I actually drove through as fast as possible not even any nostalgia for the 10years I lived there.
I stopped in Mesquite and got a coffee and a gatorade, caffeine and electrolytes, I was already feeling extremely tired and was barely halfway through my day.
What I was nostalgic for was the drive that Babe and I use to take regularly to Zion National Park in Utah. I stopped in the Virgin River Gorge which is beautiful and spent way to much time stopping every couple of miles outside of Zion. Zion is one of my favorite places it was so hard to just drive by. [double shot of espresso and another gatorade] Now past Utah and into Colorado where I passed more smelly corporate repulsive cattle farms then I could even imagine existed. At one point I went through this incredibly long stretch with no rest areas, no gas stations or exits and all this flat tiny tree landscape … needless to say after lots of coffee, water and gatorade I really needed to diddle. There was NO PLACE to pull over to provide cover and sneak behind a tree … I remember driving very fast through this area knowing that if I got pulled over I would probably piss myself. After that I learned my lesson and stopped much more frequently at rest areas. Well, that and the fact that I was exhausted and now driving in the dark, or I mean pitch fucking black winding moutains in Colorado. [one more double shot of espresso]
So sad to drive into Vail, my scenic destination of choice and not be able to see a lick of it. I made it to my hotel, The Roost exhausted from 48hrs with 2hrs of sleep and 13 hours of driving and enough caffeine to give me that nice shaky sick cracked out feeling. A nice bath and good nights sleep and then I awoke to Vail ……. wow…. totally worth it …. fairy tale beautiful. My hotel was also great for the price, comfortable, affordable and very friendly staff. I took my sweet time taking pictures and driving out of Vail and down the mountain. When I left LA it was 80, I think it was about 30 in Vail that will wake your ass up!
