Classic Midwest USA road trip

Recommended days	10
Budget	££
Difficulty	Medium

This was probably our first real road trip and a classic Midwest USA road trip was a great one to start with. Deb had a work conference for a week in Colorado so it made economic sense to take advantage of that and I flew out to meet her at the end of her week. This was my first trip to the US and the ‘big sky’ thing was certainly apparent!

It was also lovely to be driving on proper sized roads and have proper sized parking space – you can actually open your door and get out of the car without worrying about hitting the car next to you! We had a Ford Explorer for this trip – a ridiculously inefficient and wallowy car but we were sat high up and could store all our luggage easily.

After staying the night in Fort Collins we headed to Moab, in Utah. This entailed a drive across the Rockies which was quite spectacular and the rest stop we visited had 4 feet of snow although the roads had been completely cleared luckily. After descending into Utah we stopped again just to look at the sheer space and be thankful that fuel costs were so low as the car was averaging 23mpg!

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Moab was quite a small town and quite touristy. I still can’t get used to the driving mentality in the US where people seem to drive from store to store in the same street instead of just parking up and walking. I also bought a medium sized tshirt which when I tried on later was just hilarious – we could both fit inside it with space to spare. I wonder if the two are connected …….

Arches National Park

The main attraction in Moab was Arches National Park. We arrived at 8.30 as we’re British and wanted to beat the crowds! The park is vast in scale and the photo’s are really disappointing as they don’t convey this size at all. The park was extremely well laid out with plenty of parking spaces and well marked trails but we should have returned after sunset as I have since seen some quite amazing night photography from here.

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One of the few organised activities we had booked was at Durango so that was our next stop. In hindsight (that most wonderful of things!) we should have done a quick diversion to the Canyonlands National Park on the way but we headed straight there and parked up at the Doubletree, next to the river.

Durango and Silverton Railway

After dumping our stuff we went to the Durango Railway for our steam train trip. This was spectacular – the engine was built in 1881 and the route is absolutely beautiful with views into the mountains as you climb. After a short stop we were then dropped off for our snowmobile experience.

This was fantastic fun and hard work but a truly exhilerating experience. We chatted with a couple of the Americans that were doing the trip too and had driven up from Texas and it was great to exchange ideas, politics and viewpoints on things.

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We had a peaceful evening in the hotel and a stupendous breakfast the next morning which was most welcome. I did then try and kill us by getting confused at a junction and almost heading onto the tramway before working out the road layout!

Mesa Verde National Park

Next stop was Mesa Verde, quite nearby although when we entered the park the ranger told us the visitor centre was 20 miles further in so again, the sizes are very different to the UK. I’m not good with heights and I didn’t enjoy the drive up the side of the mesa although the views were apparently awesome.

The park is, as usual, excellently laid out and had helpful staff. The only area open in the winter was Spruce Tree Lodge so we visited that and were given lots of helpful information by the onsite ranger.

Back in the car we followed the tour route to get a glimpse of the other other ruins in the area before leaving the park and starting our 300 mile drive to Grand Canyon. We arrived just before sunset which was great and it’s another park that is designed for independent car based travel with lots of parking areas and marked viewpoints and routes.

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Grand Canyon

We stayed overnight in one of the rim lodges, Yavapai, and I woke up at 5.30 and headed outside to take some sunrise photos. I thought I was the only saddo but there was actually quite a horde despite it being freezing cold. The photos weren’t much good due to my lack of ability but it was a great experience anyway, actually enhanced by the number of people that made the effort to do something so simple.

After breakfast in one of the dining areas we headed off on the Desert Rim Route which was about 20 miles and involved stopping at various viewpoints and being continually amazed at the scenery. Again, the photos don’t do it justice for the sheer scale of it but it really is an incredible place.

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Our original intention was to drop the car at Las Vegas and fly to Denver before then getting our flight back home. From memory the charges for the car and internal flights were so silly it was actually significantly cheaper to drive all the way back to Denver. It does seem strange that we have incredibly cheap flights within Europe that encourage travel but the US still hasn’t caught on to that.

Wolf Creek Pass

We retraced our route and drove through Wolf Creek Pass at sunset which was lovely, before staying our final night in Monte Vista. The hotel here was actually a drive in movie theatre which I thought would be a great experience. Sadly it didn’t actually start films until the following week so we missed that.

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Next day we headed to Denver and then home having visited three states and barely scratched the surface of any of them. 2000 miles driving (about the same as London to Moscow!) and the Classic Midwest USA road trip certainly whetted our appetite for more!

2012