Still more notes from the road

Today’s travels took us through Utah and part of the way through Colorado. Nature in this part of the world is magnificent.

View from the car in Colorado

Before I get to the body of this post: to those of you who wrote me about visiting, thank you so much. I want to give every one of you an individual reply, but it’s already 10 o’clock at night and I am so tired that I just have energy for a few comments about Utah and Colorado.

Both Utah and Colorado have magnificent vistas. The mountains, the green valleys, the endless rivers – it is all breathtaking. I preferred the more lush and verdant Southeast, but I have been incredibly impressed by what I have seen so far traveling through these two states.

Incipient rain in Utah

I visited with a friend in Salt Lake City, a city I have already been to several times before. Every time I visit Salt Lake I am impressed anew by what a clean, well-managed city it is. I do believe it is the cleanest city in the entire United States.

My friend lives in a very nice neighborhood that is next to a fabulously wealthy neighborhood. We walked the dog through a few streets in the fabulously wealthy neighborhood, and I was incredibly impressed by the beautiful architecture. A lot of it looked like mid century modern — those angular houses from the 1950s — although bigger and updated. There were also more traditional houses.

What was consistent, whether in my friend’s somewha less affluent neighborhood or in this fabulously wealthy neighborhood, was that the Mormon ethos of keeping things clean and well maintained applies to homes as well as public areas. Every house we passed was an apple pie order, with beautiful flower gardens and exquisite lawns. Indeed, I think the Mormon church teaches its faithful some magic that keeps weeds off their lawns. I have never seen more perfect, weed free lawns in my life. It was a pleasure.

Colorado has really confusing freeway on and off ramps. It also has expensive hotels, few of which take dogs. So far, what little I have seen of Colorado has not knocked my socks off – aside of course from the staggering natural beauty, which knocked both socks and shoes off.

I am now getting reduced to mindless babble. I will try to write tomorrow if I am less tired. I will also try to reach out tomorrow to those of you who were kind enough to contact me directly. Needless to say I was delighted to hear from each of you. I will get back first to those of you who are most likely in the path of my planned travel because, with luck, I might be able to see some of you. For those of you who, sadly, are too far away for me to visit, I promise to answer your emails within the week.

Just as a heads up, we are currently somewhat west of Denver. Tomorrow we will continue to travel east on I 70.