Fervent Nomad: Aspen, CO

Trip miles 6858
Daily miles 637

O' Nomad and I drove from Las Vegas to Aspen, Colorado on Monday. The day dawned beautiful and hot.

We left early in order to get a head start on the day. The route was pretty simple - take I-15 until it reaches I-70.

Logistics fascinate me and I couldn't stop wondering about how Vegas gets resupplied. I-15 is the only highway that goes into it. The interstate starts in LA abut 250 miles to the south, and continues on to Salt Lake City about 400 miles to the north. Clearly LA is closer, so it must be that it can get all of its supplies from the south by road and air and rail. It's incredible that a city of hundreds of thousands of people in the middle of the desert can be fully provided for.

In Nevada, I-15 goes through pretty featureless desert. The views of open space are stunning, but very difficult to capture on camera - pictures come out bland.

We did see some F-15s but couldn't get a good shot. I imagine they were 15s since they were twin-tail planes and we were near Nellis Air Force Base but I guess they could have been 18s as well. Only Iran still uses F-14s, so they definitely weren't Tomcats.

We did see a Fedex convention.

And I was always happy to see cellphone towers - towers are life! One of the nice things about the trip home is that it's mainly interstates and hence there is usually reception.

It's not all bars in all places but pretty good overall.

I-70 clips the upper northwest corner of Arizona, and the views there were just awesome, literally starting at the border. The road follows a river, but the engineers clearly had to blast the course in various places through the mountains. O' Nomad and I burst out laughing when we saw how epic the sights were.

Not only is the road curvy but it also changes elevation substantially. You may not be able to tell but this is a steep downhill.

I-15 then goes into Utah, and the landscape becomes much lusher, certainly enough to support cattle raising.

It is very much big sky country.

I have many pictures of power lines or telephone poles off into the distance, but this is one of the best.

Wal-Mart has an amazing logistics operation. It has distribution centers in extremely out of the way places but near interstate highways. I presume their placement is a result of serious optimization among real estate cost, distance to major cities, geographic centrality, etc. I saw a few of them on the trip, and one of them was in the middle of nowhere in Utah.

We saw signs for some pretty interesting sounding places along the way.

I'll spare you the sign for Beaver...

Utah certainly goes out of its way to highlight the contrast with its more sinful neighbor.

We picked up I-70 in the middle of the state. I-70 is definitively my favorite interstate of the trip. The sights though Utah ad Colorado are simply incredible. Like I-15 in Arizona it has been cut through the mountains, so the scenery is exquisite and the driving is highly entertaining. Words fail to capture the awesomeness of the section between the I-15 junction and Green River in Utah.

I'm not sure if pictures do it justice either.

The scenery does look a bit familiar...

And again...

This sign has great significance for me.

As you may recall, Junior Nomad and I stayed at a hotel on Route 128 in Moab. We took 128 to get on to I-70, and then took I-70 for a short while into Colorado before taking Route 139 up to Jackson. Consequently this point is the middle of the figure-eight I have traced across the country.

We then entered Colorado. I-70 follows the Colorado River and the scenery is beautiful, although not quite as epic as in Utah.