Grand Junction, Colorado to Burlington, Colorado.
I left Grand Junction around 7:15 and it was strictly a blow-and-go trip along I-70 to Denver and then on to Burlington for the night. Burlington is about 10 miles from the Kansas line.
It had been many years since we had driven from Grand Junction toward Denver, and truthfully, I'm not certain we ever made the trip. Grand Junction is on the "Western Slope" as the natives refer to it, and it is a huge agricultural area. Within about 30 miles of Grand Junction, though, you begin to climb upwards through some very impressive canyons and then higher up into the mountains. The scenery is breathtaking, but, alas, I didn't take any pictures. I stopped in Eagle, CO, near Vail, for breakfast and arrived in Denver around noon or so. When we lived in Denver (1980-1982), I-70 was not complete to Grand Junction. You had to take parts of US6 through Glenwood Canyon, which, I now see, is a very steep, narrow, difficult place to build anything. In fact, the interstate wasn't completed through the canyon until 1992. But it is a beautiful drive.
I took a break in Denver (ok, stopped at the Harley dealer) and then headed east through town on I-70 and out onto the plains. Eastern Colorado is very flat, semi-arid, and sparsely populated, although the terrain isn't as forbidding as I saw in Nevada and Utah. There are ranches and occasional towns, many of which don't even have a gas station. Burlington looks to be a farming center, with a big grain silo and a set of railroad tracks running through the center of town...making it a mecca of prosperity, I would guess, in this area. I was surprised that the fields all the way east from Denver seemed to be pretty green and lush. What I remember from when we lived here is that they were dry, dry, dry. They must be having a wet summer.
Tomorrow, it's off to Independence, Missouri for the night. Miles today: 419. Total: 10,835.
