Red Line-Green Dot Travelers

A key issue to resolve before you hit the road with your honey is your travel style. Is it the freeway...foot on the pedal, destination the goal? Or would you rather slowly poke along every back road you can find?

Ed and I figured out years ago we're shunpikers---whenever we have an option to avoid freeways we do. To us freeways are a bit torturous. Highways, although slightly better are not much fun either.

We seek out the lessor routes marked scenic, which have never failed to please. As the road decreases --size, traffic, surfacing--our delight grows. One day, if we have a 4-wheel drive, we'll add a yippee category. Fortunately, Ed and I don't waiver in our agreement on these criteria.

Today we selected Scenic Highway 139 from Colorado National Monument to Dinosaur National Monument for our primary route. For just a few miles we needed to be on I-70 and for another short spell we needed to be on Highway 40, but these episodes were short so we didn't suffer unduly.

Just look at this...

The stormy sky, muted colors, distant snowy mountains and the Green River provided us with our daily exclamation quota. At Dinosaur National Park we went over the top, but that's for later. I need to do some serious editing as I went slightly crazy, unable to control my camera-snapping-finger.

This is our camp view from Thistle. Between the r-pod and the cliffs is the Green River...

Without exception, we have been pleased with the two-lane highways marked scenic. On our map they are a single red line with green parallel dots. They probably are the equivalent to the blue highways written about in an autobiographical travel book, published in 1982, by William Least Heat-Moon, entitled Blue Highways. But map road colors have changed since then and now Interstates are blue. Avoid blue! On occasion blue interstate highways will have green dots running parallel alone side them. We are skeptics and don't just jump at these opportunities, but the green dots can weaken our resolve.

Guess you could call us red line-green dot travelers!

~~~

"The most beautiful thing about the most beautiful roads is that the destination is forgotten

and the journey becomes the destination itself!"

~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

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