Day 4: Fort Collins to Salt Lake City

The “Breakfast Burrito” at the “Farmers Table” diner in Fort Collins resembled a bathroom towel rolled into the cylinder. It was floating in the brown sweet goo, the nature of which I wasn’t able to determine. Fast stop at Starbucks for skinny latte, a drive around Colorado State University campus, quick walk through the historic old part of town and I was back on the road. First I drove 50 miles north from Fort Collins back to Cheyenne, then west on I80. Crossing Rocky Mountains was a surreal experience. It felt like I was driving on the post card. In fact looking into the rear view mirror was exactly that – gazing at the post card. However 60MPH wind forced me to keep my eyes on the road. The small towns in the south central Wyoming were clustered around oil refineries or chemical plants. Most houses are old trailers set on foundation of bricks or tires laid down flat. Clerks at gas stations were greeting me with unfriendly tired looks and bathrooms were filthy, smelly and half of them had no running water. The western part of Wyoming is a desert with tumble-weeds and Union Pacific Freight Trains covered in graffiti and stretching out from one end of the horizon to the other. The reddish hill tops in the distance were armed with spikes of wind turbines. After about 6 hours of driving I crossed Wyoming-Utah border and began climbing up into the mountains again until the road sign said: “Elevation 6800 feet”. A dozen snaking descends took me down past Park City and then lower into the Salt Lake City.