Last Saturday I began my return trip from Mountain View, California to Champaign, Illinois. The drive took me through Yosemite National Park, across the deserts of Nevada, over the San Rafael Swell, through the Rockies of Colorado, and over the Great Plains to Illinois.
The day before I left, I went to a company picnic. At one point the conversation turned to the trip ahead. Reactions ranged from envy that I got to take four days off to see the country, to surprise that I was driving the whole way by myself. I feel the trip was akin to an Australian walkabout: I got to wander the country, enjoy the sights, and be alone with my thoughts.
People asked what I did with my time. Play music? Listen to audiobooks? I listened to the radio when I could get a signal, but mostly I contemplated the land around me. The spectacular mountains and rock formations made me wonder about the geological forces that shaped them. I also found it fascinating to watch plants appear or disappear as I changed elevation and crossed ecosystems. For example, dropping out of Yosemite's pine forests into bare desert was particularly jarring. Human settlements, too, varied with natural as well as economic features. One particular ridge in Utah separated salt flats from thriving farmland irrigated by the flow of a shallow river.
This trip, like its counterpart three months ago, was as much about the journey as the destination.
Day One
Unlike my original trip west, I got an early start on my trip east. I had everything packed the night before, and with the help of my housemates, it only took about an hour to load everything into my car. I departed from Mountain View on Saturday, August 11 around 10:30 AM PST.
By the end of the day I crossed California and made it a quarter of the way through Nevada. Here is a map of the route I followed.
It did not take long to leave San Francisco Bay behind me as I took various 80-suffixed interstates toward the Central Valley. The air became drier and dustier the further I got from the coast. I turned onto Highway 120 midway across the valley and was soon surrounded by orchards and fruit stands. Having grown up in the Midwest, I found it interesting to see farmland covered with rows of trees rather than corn.
120 was perfectly flat and straight across the valley, but became much steeper and twistier as it rose into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. I started seeing signs for the first waypoint of my trip: Yosemite National Park.
As I ascended, pines replaced farmland and touristy mountain towns replaced fruit stands. I reached Yosemite's western Big Oak Flat entrance around 2:30.
I regret that I could not stop to do some hiking, but fortunately the highway passes right through the center of the park and overlooks some of the most beautiful landscape in the Sierras.
I saw signs of wildfires throughout my trip. In the Central Valley I passed several patches of scorched grass by the side of the road. In Yosemite I smelled the remains of a forest fire before I saw it. It was a sweet woody smell, like carmelizing sugar and mulch.
The road continued to rise. I ate lunch around 3:30 in a secluded picnic area near a dry stream bed.
Continuing on, I started seeing more gray rock jutting above the pines.
Turning around a bend, the road revealed a spectacular granite-lined valley. Far away in the haze I could see the famous Half Dome.
Had I seen only that valley, I would have been perfectly happy, but Yosemite had many more sights to show me. Not far from the Half Dome viewing area, the landscape once again opened into a breathtaking valley. Tenaya Lake lay at the bottom. The road dropped steeply to follow its northern bank.
Beyond Tenaya Lake lay Tuolumne Meadows, the largest sub-alpine meadow in the Sierra Nevada. Here the urge to go hiking got even greater, but I remained firm. I had 150 to 200 more miles to drive that day.
The eastern park exit came all too soon after the meadow. I left the park and entered the drier, rockier, but no less picturesque Tioga Pass.
The pass spat me out onto the banks of Mono Lake, one of the oldest lakes in North America. The road abruptly turned south, passing through a surreal pine forest. Trees were separated by at least ten feet with open sand or sparse grasses in the gaps. Like the forest of stumps in Yosemite, parts of this forest exhibited some fire damage.
I had entered true desert by the time I joined US-6 beyond Mono Lake. I was the only car for miles, and I was surrounded by sand, scattered shrubs, and mountains. At dusk I ascended a rise to the former mining town of Tonopah, Nevada, where I spent the night.
Day Two
The second day of my trip took me through the remainder of Nevada, across all of Utah, and several miles into Colorado. Here is the route I followed.
US-6 shot straight as a plumb line out of Tonopah. It rose and fell with the mountain ridges like a toy boat on the ocean.
Between Currant and Ely, Nevada, I passed through a section of the Humbolt National Forest. I did not expect to find a forest in the desert. It was populated entirely by stunted juniper trees clinging desperately to the sandy soil or rock faces.
I passed many mesas and eroded rock formations between the forest and the Nevada-Utah border.
Desert and salt flats returned when I entered Utah, but they only lasted a third of the way through the state. I was surrounded by farmland by the time I got near Holden, Utah. There, I got on I-15, rejoining the interstate system for the first time since California. I then made my way to I-70, which I would follow all the way to Illinois.
I-70 through Utah is the most beautiful interstate I have ever seen. It bisects the San Rafael Swell, a 30-by-50 mile outcropping of eroded sandstone. I-70's entrance into the swell is awe-inspiring.
The freeway borders unbelievably beautiful canyons and mesas. Fortunately, the Powers That Be have placed viewing areas every few miles. The first was perched on top of some white sandstone cliffs that overlooked miles of scrubland and rust-red valleys.
I climbed onto an outcropping and admired the view for at least half an hour.
The next viewing area was no less amazing. A 100-foot path through gnarled pine trees revealed the colorfully-stratified Devil's Canyon.
The third seemed uninteresting at first glance, but I climbed up a small hill next to the pulloff area and was rewarded with a view of dozens of artfully carved mesas on the other side of the freeway.
Then, for the grand finale, I-70 dropped a few hundred feet to pass through a slot carved through the apex of Spotted Wolf Canyon.
Amazing.
The scenery remained interesting for the rest of the day's drive, but it could not compare to those 30 or 40 miles. I passed into Colorado at dusk and spent the night in Grand Junction.
Day Three
The third day of my trip took me out of Colorado and two-thirds of the way across Kansas. Here is the route I followed.
I-70, the train tracks, and the Colorado River braided around each other in system of canyons northeast of Grand Junction.
At one point the walls of the canyon were so narrow that the westbound lanes of I-70 had to be routed on stilts above the eastbound lanes.
After leaving the canyons, the freeway began to ascend into the Rocky Mountains. These were the Rockies that I envisioned when I thought of Colorado: huge cones, covered in pine trees, with (alas, very little) snow on the highest peaks.
I passed Vale and other sleeping ski resorts. At that height, the air was relatively cool compared to the dry desert air I had passed through the day before. I passed under the Continental Divide while in the Eisenhower Tunnel and began the long descent to Denver.
The transition between mountains and plains occurred abruptly in Denver. One moment I was on a ridge with a beautiful panorama of the metropolis, and the next I was looking across golden grassland. Denver itself seemed to end just as abruptly, and I almost missed getting gas before leaving the city. (As you can see, I also missed getting pictures of this stretch of road.)
The plains across the rest of Colorado and Kansas were unremarkable. I won't say "boring" because there is still something particularly impressive about cresting a small rise and being able to see unbroken prairie in every direction.
I stopped for the night in Salina, Kansas.
Day Four
Day four took me across the plains through Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois to Champaign. Here is the route I followed.
I admit that at this point in the trip, I was ready to get home. I was returning to familiar territory, and I kept stops to a minimum. It was a relief to see large broadleaf trees start to reappear halfway through Kansas. I passed through the pair of Kansas Cities and quickly burned across Missouri to Saint Louis. I meant to get a picture of the arch and Mississippi River, but traffic and a desire to return home kept me from stopping.
Illinois, too, went quickly. The only landmark of note was the intimidating, 198-foot Effingham Cross. The final leg of my trip began when I turned onto I-57 after passing the cross.
I arrived in Champaign on Tuesday, August 14 around 7:00 PM CST having traveled 2,269 miles.
Epilogue
It was very dreamlike walking up the stairs to the exact same apartment I had abandoned three months before. Everything was exactly how I left it, including the single drinking glass I left out before beginning the trip west. I joked with Dad, "it was like entering Pompeii."
This trip was an ideal end to my summer. I took the path less traveled and saw some of the amazing sights the western United States has to offer. It also piqued my interest in a third trip. In addition to passing through Yosemite, the route I took also came tantalizingly close to many other national parks—Rocky Mountain, Great Basin, Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef—and dozens of state parks, recreation areas, and national forests. On my next trip, I would love to budget enough time to thoroughly drink in more of the wilderness away from the highway.