On the road, highlights

The highlights of our 13-day, 1840-mile trip:

• The company.  After 42 years, it's still a treat to be alone for a long, long time with my wonderful wife.  I'm blessed.

• The mountains.  Those peaks and ranges and basins and mesas and hoodoos and canyons and valleys and cliffs just don't quit.  We spotted peaks as we neared Las Vegas and never lost sight of them until we were flying home.  I'd always thought of the Rockies as a narrow band running from Canada to Mexico.  (And, who knows, maybe they are.)  But there are lots of other mountains out there besides the Rockies.  A whole "American cordillera," in fact. I guess that's why so much of the west looks crumpled up on a topographical map. Anyway, I had no idea how extensive the mountains are.  We drove a long, long way, and the scenery made every mile exciting.

• One day, the thrill of driving through that spectacular scenery was doubled when we cranked up  the choral symphony on the CD player. The whole piece is great, of course, but when the soprano climbed into nosebleed territory near the end, the wonderful wife and I both said, "Oh, wow!"  (You can listen to a little of the symphony here; Jessye Norman starts climbing higher and higher and gets stronger and stronger from about the 5:20 mark.  I should note that the recording we listened to is not the one shown on YouTube; rather, we listened to this one -- which also has Solti conducting and Norman singing.)

• An evening spent huddling in front of the fireplace in Eric Dunbar's courtyard in Las Vegas.

• A late afternoon sitting on lawn chairs at Zion Canyon B&B, talking and sipping some wine and smoking a cigar and looking up at the cliffs.

• The whole airbnb experience.  Very positive! 

• Leaving Zion. The narrow road twists and turns, with a long, steep drop waiting for you if you drift a little too far to the right; it takes you to a mile-long (no exaggeration) narrow (no exaggeration) pitch-black (no exaggeration) tunnel.  The wonderful wife almost had a heart attack.

• The wedding reception -- especially when Karen came over to our table and seemed to be comfortable visiting for half an hour or so.

• The carriage ride with Katie.

• Dinner at Karen and Kevin's with most of the clan.

• Twisty, curvey, bendy Colorado Route 114.

• How easy the driving was.  I have a hard time staying awake on a drive to Philadelphia, but out west I could drive all day without any difficulty at all.