Day 35: Half Moon Lake, WY to Edwards, CO
We packed up our campsite and started south, but rather than head east toward our final destination for the day, we took a different route through the corner of Utah first. South of Rock Springs, the road started to curve and climb, bordered by long stretches of snow fences and opening up to giant, rocky vistas that required more than one pit stop to take it all in, as seen in the second photo below.
We had toyed briefly with the idea of stopping and camping for one more night, somewhere near the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, but lack of a shady campsite and the above-90º weather made it an easy decision to press on, taking in as much of the landscape as we could from the car (and vowing to come back someday in the future). We drove through the southern section of the Flaming Gorge area, crossing over the Flaming Gorge Dam and Cart Creek Bridge (below). Both can also be seen in the video at the bottom of this post.
Shortly after that we crossed the border into Colorado, passing through the town of Dinosaur (just south of Dinosaur National Monument) and making our way south toward 70. We're not sure if we missed a turn or if Google Maps was just trying to spice up our route, but this leg of the journey was on a beautifully empty dirt road that seemed to go on and on, covered in sagebrush and painted in golds and greens by the sun. But, truly, there was nothing on this road. Though slightly confusing, it wasn't a bad little detour of sorts.
The drive down 70 through Glenwood Canyon is easily one of the most impressive and beautiful stretches of road you can drive down in the U.S. We'd been down it before, years before, but both felt a renewed awe faced with 2,000-foot canyon walls on either side of the roadway along the Colorado River. Tunnels and bridges weave through the canyon, dotted with rest areas that provide access to hiking, biking, rafting, and a recreational path through the canyon.
As we drew closer to Edwards, we quickly discovered that Google Maps had once again led us astray—they had somehow missed the memo on several roads up the mountain that didn't appear to have been open for quite some time... But, even more beautiful dirt roads and the golden hour sun made it slightly more acceptable than we'd usually find an hour-long detour to nothing. We corrected our route and made our way up the mountain for the night, more relieved than ever to be done with a long day of driving.