Coming home

Well, my trip out west and my memories end with this post. After our few days in Rocky Mountain National Park, I dropped DJ and Laurie off at the airport in Denver. My plan was to stay out west another week or two. My first quest was to do a back country hike it the Flat Top Wilderness area a couple hours west of Denver. After that I was going to come east slowly. I planned on visiting the White River in Arkansas. I also wanted to visit Shiloh Battlefield. Lastly, I was going to visit the battlefields and catfish in Virginia.

I dropped them off in the late afternoon. I went back to Timber Creek for the night. Then I packed up and headed west. On my way through Granby, CO, I picked up a hitchhiker (another bucket list check off) . He was a good guy about fifty years old drifting across the west. He was on his way to visit to visit his father in central Colorado. After I dropped him off I went to the Flat Tops. I packed my backpack and left my itinerary on my dashboard. That way if I got hurt, lost, or dead a ranger would know where to look.

My first goal was a pond called Trapper Lake. I made it a few hours in, then a cold thunderstorm came through. I got wet and miserable. I decided to head home. The truth was, I was blaming the cold, but I already missed DJ. I had spent every second with him for seven weeks. It was tough to break away and I missed him greatly. 

One of the Flat Tops, a well named
mountain range

The last marmot I saw out west.

After the rain, I headed back out. I slept in the car then started to drive east. When I came out of the mountains, I came through the prairie around Denver. It was a hot, humid, day. Just as I was coming down to lower elevations, my car started bucking violently. About every twenty seconds or so it would jerk suddenly. It was very uncomfortable to ride. I called my brother, who had internet access, to find me a Hyundai dealership. I called a dealership in Dodge City, Kansas. They couldn't help me. Finally I couldn't take it any more and got off at a city called Salina. I found a transmission shop.

I thought for sure my tranny was dying. When the owner looked at it, my car was fine, no bucking at all. The reason I found out later was because the broken part was called a TSP and it stops working when it heats up.  With a cold start, it works fine for about fifteen minutes. The owner figured it out and ordered my part. This meant I was stuck in Salina, KS for a couple of days. I checked into a $29 a night motel. I'm almost positive drug deals and prostitution were going on in the next room. I could hear talk of drugs through the paper thin walls. 

I was so lonely and wanted to get home so bad, those two days were awful. The one thing I did to keep busy was read "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn.

My prison for two nights

Finally my car was fixed, and I thanked the mechanic multiple times and headed home. I drove from 11 am until 5 am the next morning. I went from Salina to a rest area outside Pittsburgh. I didn't stop at the Gateway Arch but saw it from the highway. 

I slept from 5-8 am, and drove another nine and a half hours to get home. Obviously, the trip was once in a lifetime. It was an amazing experience. As I have said, if you have any questions about any of the places I went, just ask in the comments. I'll gladly answer them. I hope you enjoyed the tour of many of the greatest places in the American west.