During this trip, in June of 2006, we visited six states: Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Utah. The scenery in every road, although it changes so much, never stopped amazing us. From the dessert-like plains of Wyoming to the Black Hills of South Dakota, from the potato fields of Idaho to the canyons of Route 70 of Colorado. We enjoyed ten different events, several picturesque little towns, high mountains, strange rock formations and grandiose huge monuments. The highlight of the trip was, of course, the Yellowstone National Park, with its hundreds of geysers, steam vents, water falls, canyons and exotic animals.
First stop was in Colorado, where the airport is the largest in the nation, covering 53 square miles, large enough to hold Dallas and Chicago airports combined.
Manitou Springs got its name from the more than a dozen mineral water springs that permeate the area. Waters rising from the aquifers deep below the ground absorb minerals in high concentrations, including the carbonic acid, which gives its bubbles. The naturally carbonated water was a perfect tonic for the digestive ailments of the Ute, Arapaho, Cheyenne and Kiowa Indians that visited this picturesque valley for centuries.
Many famous personalities enjoyed the charm and curative effects of the place, like Presidents McKinley, Roosevelt and Grant.
By the 1870's, a bottling company began producing bottled mineral water for the public benefit. Two decades later, half a million estimated gallons of spring water were being bottled.
Besides being one of the most picturesque towns that we have visited, Manitou Springs is also the base of Pike's Peak, part of the Rocky Mountains that form the Continental Divide. It takes about one hour to reach the summit by cog railway. When we reached the end of the ascent, at an altitude of 14,210 feet, we felt in awe with the 360º view. It is at this point that Katharine Lee Bates found the inspiration to write "America the Beautiful" in 1893.
Other attractions very close to town are the Cliff Dwellings, an exact replica of an ancient Anasazi Indian town, and the Garden of the Gods, Colorado's oldest and largest park, full of strange red rock formations.
The Badlands National Park of South Dakota makes you feel that you are in a different planet. The multicolored canyons are sometimes deep beneath the road with a small river at the bottom and other times you are driving between these strange looking mountains.
In the morning, we drove to see our next destination. This is one of the most beautiful roads we have ever seen, with the deep-green small mountains that comprise the Black Hills of South Dakota. When the clouds cover them they really look almost black.
In the middle of this lush scenery is Mount Rushmore. At the very sight of it, we had to stop and wonder at the immensity of this monument . It took sculptor Gutzon Borglum 14 years to carve these four head figures from the granite mountains. It depicts the faces of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The faces measure approximately 60 feet from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head; the eyes ere eleven feet across and the mouths are eighteen. The full sculpture is 185 feet across and 150 feet high. It was made at a cost of almost one million dollars.
About twenty miles from Mt. Rushmore is Crazy Horse Memorial, another monument, now in progress. Crazy Horse was a great Lakota chief who suffered the mistreatment of the American Government. He never signed a treaty or lived in a reservation. His left arm extending and pointing with his finger is the answer to the derisive question asked by a white man: "Where are your lands now?" He replied: "My lands are where my dead are buried."
Deadwood, SD, claims to be the town where the West was born...and where it will never die. It was the home of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, just two of the infamous characters that lived there. Gamblers, gunslingers, prostitutes and bank robbers frequented the many saloons in the 1870's, making Deadwood a dangerous place to live.
Only twenty years ago, the entire town seemed about ready to be joining Hickok and Jane in the graveyard. What was left of it looked more like a ghost town than the booming Black Hills capital it was one. But Deadwood's people wouldn't have it. They bonded together to bring gaming to the town and fuel life back into the city. Historic hotels, saloons and landmarks were restored. And Deadwood once again became the center of excitement of the Black Hills.
On the way to Wyoming, we had to make a small detour to visit Devil's Tower, a solid rock mountain that rises 867 feet from its base and 5,112 feet above sea level. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devil's Tower the first national monument. Approximately 5,000 climbers come here every year from all over the world to climb on the massive columns.
Cody, Wyoming, was founded in 1895 by a very famous western man, Col. William F. Cody (February 26, 1846 - January 10, 1917) universally known as Buffalo Bill. He was a Pony Express rider, a stage coach driver and a buffalo hunter for the railroad company, a scout for the U.S. Calvary, an actor on the New York stage with his friend Wild Bill Hickok, a member of the Nebraska Legislature and many more accomplishments that made him one of the most respected Westerners of the American history.
But it was his "Wild Show" that put him on the pedestal of immortals. The show traveled around the United States and foreign countries for 30 years! At some time it had 1,200 performers, Chief Sitting Bull among them.
There was an Indian Powwow during that weekend and we enjoyed it very much. It was the annual reunion were more than one hundred American Natives (most of them looked 100% pure race) from different tribes, dressed in their best attires, compete in dancing and singing. It is held next to the Buffalo Bill Historical Museum, a compound of five buildings depicting the history of Buffalo Bill and his Wild Shows.
Early next morning, we drove the fifty miles to the East entrance of the Yellowstone National Park. It took another hour after entering it to encounter the first amusing sight of the park. The first display was four bison walking in the middle of the road, like saying "this is our park". One of them felt so at home that he wanted to mate right there, in front of all the cars full of tourists. Soon more buffalos came to sight, now in bigger numbers. Whenever you see some cars parked on the side of the road, it is because there are some animals around. We stopped at the first spot and saw a big black bear eating on a carcass while a wolf was waiting for him to retire to feed himself. Later on there was a crowd of buffalos and later another black bear very close to the road (it is forbidden to stray away from your car) and a grizzly bear taking a mud bath.
The sulphur caldron and mud volcano made us believe, again, that we were in another planet. Then we arrived at the awe inspiring vista of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The multicolored rocks, the river at the bottom, the pine trees and the high waterfalls here make this place a real paradise on earth. The Mammoth Hot Spring is a big rock with flowing scalding water coming down through several terraces.
After spending the whole day enjoying so many steam vents and geysers and wild animals, it was time to exit the park and go to our motel, which is in the town of West Yellowstone, Montana, just two blocks away from the West entrance. Right before the exit, there was a zone lined with red traffic cones and a sign prohibiting parking or stopping there, as it is a bald eagle's area. I parked after the zone and walked back to it and took a photograph of a huge eagle's nest. Then I noticed another sign prohibiting walking there, so I jumped to a wooded area where I saw a couple of people with binoculars and they informed me of two bald eagles posing at the other side of the river.
After entering the park the next morning, we saw about 100 bison roaming about 100 yards from the road. Then we arrived at the highlight of the park, the "Old Faithful", the only geyser that is, more or less, punctual in its outbursts. We sat down in the area around it which soon was crowded with about 2,000 people. After about one hour waiting, the show started. A strong burst of water is thrown up in the air like coming from a big fireman's hose. The eruption lasts about 5 minutes, expels 3,700 gallons of boiling water and reaches a height of 105-184 feet. It is an incredible sight, very hard to describe. Suffice is to say that everybody stared in awe, including us, at this spectacular Nature's extravaganza.
We walked through a wooden path to see several other geysers, steam vents and ponds. Some geysers erupt every hour, others once a year an others are constantly throwing boiling water but not too high. There are several pools of scalding crystalline water, with hues of green, blue, orange and other colors. Our favorite one is called "the Morning Glory". The water is so clear that you can see the tube through which the water flows to the surface.
We had to cross the park again next day to drive south and I was lamenting that the only animal that we had not seen was a moose. We saw again a bunch of cars stopped at a lookout and they informed us that a couple of moose cows had been right there in the open, but had entered the woods. I couldn't miss the opportunity and went after them, even though it is prohibited. I spotted them and went as close as I dared and took their photograph. When I was returning, about a dozen people had followed my steps. We then crossed the Continental Divide, marked by a sign proclaiming that it was at an elevation of 8,262 feet.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is a beautiful little town. The four corners of the park have big arches formed by hundreds of antlers.
We drove a few miles back to the Gran Teton area, a mountain range whose tops are perennially covered with snow.
We arrived at Salt Lake City, Utah, at night and couldn't see much of the town.
The next stop was at the Arches National Park, Utah. The park is located 27 miles from the main road. At the other side of the road is the Canyonlands Park, which is where the Gran Canyon of Colorado starts.
The strange red rock formations at this park look like huge sculptures, sometimes resembling elephants or teddy bears. Bruni baptized one of the sculptures "The Three Magi". The most spectacular views are, of course, the immense natural arches. There are about two dozen of them, but we had time to see only three.
The road from here to Denver was, without any doubt, the most beautiful one of the whole trip with more than 300 miles of canyon-like mountains left and right. The Colorado River runs along the road for many miles, making it more unusual.
We couldn't miss Vail, Colorado, which is one of the most famous ski resorts in United States. Vail looks like a charming European little town. Prices here are outrageous and they told us that in Winter was double.
We arrived late at night in Denver. We had been on the road for 14 hours! We drove for a total of 2,782 miles! This was one of the most fascinating, historical and informative trips that we have ever taken and we felt very happy at our return home.
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