Day #7: Vernal to Cortez

 

The next morning, I was on Rt #40 and headed from Vernal Utah to Dinosaur Colorado. I wished that I had had the time to go into the dinosaur museum again.  When I was last there, over fifteen years ago, they had a fossilized dinosaur, and it was almost half uncovered from the side of the cliff where it was buried.  They had built the museum around this discovery, and its walls connected right to the cliff on both sides of the dig.  I made a bet with myself as I passed by that they had entirely uncovered it by now.  It was hard to believe in this dry arid climate that the greatest creatures to ever walk the earth once roamed here. 

 

  This Week Was Not About Museums Or Sideshows, It Was About The ‘Ride’ 

 

At Dinosaur, I took Rt. #64 East toward Rangely where I gassed up and connected with Rt. #139. I then entered the great flat regions of Western Colorado where the only towns were Loma and Fruita with Grand Junction sitting just off the interstate twelve miles farther to the East.  

 

Just before Fruita, I passed the old farming community of Loma Colorado. Loma sat just off interstate Rt.#70 and looked like another one of those towns that time had forgotten.  I stopped to photograph the old two-story Loma School that sat in the weeds 100 yards off the road.  As I approached the front entrance, I could feel the excitement of the students who had attended there reverberate around me. I thought I heard their laughter, as I pushed on the double latch of the large front entry door.  Sadly, it was locked. As I looked in through its glass panels, I thought I saw a figure carrying books and making a left turn into one of the deserted classrooms — or were they deserted.  

 

I have learned to no longer question what I see but to be thankful for the gift of being able to see at all.  While closed, I was gratified that the county had not torn the old building down and had allowed it to stand. It was a living testament to all that had happened there and to what, in a passing visitors imagination, just might happen again.  I smiled realizing that I would soon be like that old building, a memory, whose retelling would overshadow any new thing that I might become. 

 

There were two deserted schools, that sat dormant, yet vibrant, along the pathway of my discovery this week.  I had put my hands firmly on the front doors of both hoping that they would empty into me all the mystery hidden within their corridors and halls that they had been previously unwilling to share. Forever, they would remain unsettled in my thoughts because of what they once were and even more for the stories they might tell. 

 

At Fruita, I got on the Interstate (Rt #70 East) and missed my exit for Rt.#141 South which would have taken me across the Uncompahgre Plateau.  I went twenty miles too far to the East before turning around and on the reverse trip made the same mistake again.  The exit for Rt.#141 was not marked, so I got off and followed the signs for Rt.#50 and stopped at the first gas station for better directions.  The clerk behind the desk smiled at me as I asked for her help.  She said, “Not so easy to find Rt #141, is it?” Many things in the West were not easy to find, but the ones worth keeping had been worth looking for.

 

After a series of three right turns, I arrived in the tiny town of Whitewater Colorado and saw the sign for Rt.#141.  I didn’t refuel back at the gas station — I had simply forgotten. The next town on Rt.#141 (Gateway Colorado), was still 43 miles further West.  I knew I could make it with what I had left in my tank but would Gateway have fuel?  If not, I would become the remote victim of an unknown fate caused by an unfortunate memory lapse.  

 

If the first twenty miles of this trip hadn’t been mired in road construction, the remote beauty of the canyons, and the road they stood as bookends against, were worth any chance that I might run out of gas. The manual said that the Goldwing could go over two hundred miles before running out of gas. Today would test both the veracity of that statement and my belief that the road was always there to save you when you needed it most.   

 

Road construction in this part of the West meant that two lanes had been reduced to one totally stopping the traffic in one of the lanes. A long line of idling vehicles waited for the pilot car to come from the other direction, turn around, and then take them through the construction zone to where the second lane opened again. Once there, the pilot car positioned itself at the head of the opposing line of stopped vehicles wanting to go the other way. It slowly began the whole process all over again going back in the direction from where it had started. 

 

There’s an old Western joke about the West having four-seasons —Fall, Winter, Spring, and Road Construction. If you’ve traveled west of the Mississippi between Memorial Day and September, you undoubtedly have your own stories to tell about waiting in line.

 

If you’ve been lucky, you didn’t have to wait more than twenty or thirty minutes for the pilot car to return.  If not lucky, you could’ve waited forty-five minutes or more.  On this day, the thermometer on the bike read 103,’ so I turned off the motor, dropped the kickstand down and got off. I removed my jacket and, within sight of the bike, went for a short walk.

 

  The Heat Was Coming Off The ‘Road’ In Waves And Made Standing On Its Surface Both Uncomfortable And Severe

 

As I anticipated, in exactly twenty minutes the pilot car emerged from around the mountain in front of me. Within three minutes more, it had turned around, positioned itself in front of the line where I was number five and, with the flagman waving back and forth in our direction, had us on our way.  It looked like it was going to be a slow dusty ride through the Grand Mesa National Forest toward Gateway for another ten miles. 

 

Slow and dusty yes, but it was also gorgeous in a way that only a San Juan Mountain Road knew how to be.  With all the temporary unpleasantness from the heat and the dust, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.  This was what real travel was all about. I had learned its true meaning on the many Wyoming and Montana back roads of my youth — and on a much smaller motorcycle — over thirty years ago.

 

It’s What You Can’t Control That Allows For The Possibility Of                                  Greatest Change 

 

Casting my fate again to the spirits of the road, I passed the four slower cars in front of me and was again by myself.  The awe-inspiring mountain’s drifted lower into canyons of incredible beauty.  The descent was more than just a change in elevation.  I was being passed off from one of nature’s power sources to the other. As the mountains delivered their tenant son to the canyons in waiting, the road, once again, proved to be smarter than the plans I had made to deal with it.

 

              The ‘Road’ Had Once Again Proved Smarter …

 

Typical of many small western towns, the only gas station in Gateway had a sign on the front door that read … ‘Back In 30 Minutes.’ The two pumps did not accept credit cards, so the decision was to either wait for the station manager to return or to continue south toward Nucla, and if I had no luck there then Naturita. “One of them surely had gas” I said to myself, and with still an eighth of a tank left, I decided I would rather take the risk than wait, as daylight was burning.  Betting on the uncertainty of the future was different than dealing with the uncertainty of the here and now.  One was filled with the promise of good intention, while the other only underscored what you had learned to fear.

 

                                I Decided To Move On

 

Just outside of Gateway, and like a mirage in the desert, I saw a large resort a half-mile ahead on my right. As I got closer, I realized it was no mirage at all as the sign read ‘Welcome To The Gateway Canyons Resort.’ Nothing could have stood in greater contrast to the things I had seen in the last fifty miles.  This resort looked like it should have been in Palm Springs or Sedona.  It was built totally out of red desert stucco with three upscale restaurants, a health club, and an in-house museum.  

 

What I cared about most was did they have gas?  Sitting right in front of their General Storewere two large concrete islands with pumps on both sides.  It was a welcome sight regardless of price, $4.99 for regular, which was more than a dollar a gallon higher than I had paid anywhere else.

 

                            Any Port In A Storm

 

After filling the Goldwing’s tank, I walked inside the General Store to get something to drink.  The manager was standing by the cash register and talking to a clerk.  She looked at me and smiled as she said: “So where are you headed?”  When I told her the Grand Canyon,and then eventually back to Las Vegas she replied: “Hey, tell all your Motorcycle friends about us, we love to service the Bike trade.”  

 

I told her I was a writer and would in fact be doing a story about my ride. But based on her overly inflated prices I would have to recommend filling up in either Whitewater or Naturita.  She grimaced slightly and said something about business in this remote region dictating the price.  I returned her smile as I wished her a good day. Joni’s immortal words about “repaving paradise and putting up a parking lot” rang in my ears, as I walked back outside and restarted the bike.

 

   Sometimes We Had To Cross The line To Know What The Line                                         Meant

 

This place had been recently built by John Hendricks the founder of The Discovery Channel.  He and his family discovered this valley on a vacation trip in 1995.  Instead of becoming part of the surroundings, he decided to turn his vision of the valley into an extension of what he already knew.  It was a shame really because a museum with classic Duesenberg Cars was as out of place in this remote canyon as any notion that you could then merchandise and control it to suit your own ends.

 

I couldn’t leave fast enough! Without even one look back through my rearview mirrors, I rounded the bend to the right that took me away from this place.  Once out of sight of the resort, I was deep in virgin canyonland again where only the hawk and the coyote affirmed my existence. I wondered … why do we do many of the things that we do? At the same time, I was grateful, as I looked up and offered a silent thank you for the gas. 

 

 Asking ‘Why’ Throws My Spirit Into Reverse Gear, And I Know                                     Better …  

 

Just past Naturita, I made a right turn on Rt.#141 and headed south toward Dove Creek.  It was farther than it appeared on the map, and it was past 7:30 in the evening when I arrived where Rt.#141 dead-ended into Rt.#491.  I took the left turn toward Cahone where I continued south toward the 4-Corners town of Cortez Colorado.  This time life balanced. The trip to Cortez from Dove Creek which looked at least as long, or longer, than the one I had just traveled, was only 36 more miles — and I could stop for the night.

 

I raced toward the 4-Corners as the sun disappeared behind the Canyons Of The Ancients. I averaged over 85 MPH again alone on the road.  My only fear was that a deer or coyote might come out of the shadows, but I traveled secure inside my vision that on two-wheels my life would never end. I knew my life would never end that way, but a serious injury was something to be avoided.  

 

The trip to Cortez was over in a flash, and in less than twenty minutes I saw billboards and signs that pointed to a life outside of myself lining both sides of the road.  As I pulled into the Budget Inn, the sign that directed you toward Rt. #160 west and the Grand Canyon was right in front of the motel. There were only two other cars sitting in the parking lot with a lone Harley-Davidson Road King parked in front of a room at the extreme far end.

 

The desk clerk told me that he was originally from Iran but had been raised in the Los Angeles area.  He had a small Chihuahua named Buddy who would perform tricks if offered a reward.  I took a small milk bone out of the box on the counter and asked Buddy if he’d like to go for a ride.  He barked loudly, as he spun and pirouetted in the middle of the lobby. I thought about my own dog Colby, who I missed terribly, waiting faithfully for me on our favorite chair back home. As I walked across the parking lot to my room, Buddy had been a proper and fitting end to a ride that left nothing more to be desired.

 

I splashed water on my face, left my helmet in the room, and rode back into Cortez. All I wanted now was some good food and a beer.  Lit up in all its glory, the Main Street Brewery sat in the middle of town, and its magnetic charm did everything but physically pull me inside.  It was an easy choice and one of those things that you just know, as I parked the bike against the sidewalk and walked inside. The ribs and cole-slaw were as delicious as the waitress was delightful. It disturbed me though when I asked her about road conditions on the way to The Canyon, and she gave me that familiar blank stare.  “You know, I’ve lived up and down these San Juan’s all my life, and I’ve still never been down there.”  My heart filled with sadness as I said: “It’s only three hours away and the single greatest sight on earth that you will ever see.”

 

She looked at me vacuously, as she cleared my table, and promised she’d have to get down there one of these days if time and money ever permitted.  Amazing, I thought to myself! Here I was, a guy from Pennsylvania, who had visited the Canyon over thirty times, and this local person, living less than three hours away had not seen it — not even once. I cried inside myself for what she would probably never know as I got up to leave. 

 

             Crying For What She Would Never Know … 

 

As I turned around to take one last look at the historic bar, I was reminded that some things in life served as stepping-stones, or stairways, to all that was greater. I was in one of those places again tonight. The people who served in roadside towns like this saw the comings and goings, but never the reasons why. They were spared from feeling that outside their immediate preoccupation there could ever be anything more.  I needed to be thankful to them for having provided sustenance and shelter along my travels, but my sadness for the things that they would never see, which were many times just over the next hill, overrode any gratefulness I would feel in my heart.

 

         The Blessed Among Us Are The Blessed Indeed!