Capítulo6: PuertoRicans in High Places

Denver, Co - 04/13/2012 Was the morning of Friday the thirteen and we woke up with one mission: Drive to Vegas.

We packed our stuff and left that filthy hotel behind us. My friends Matt and Roberto warned me about the hardcore steep roads of Colorado-Utah but what we saw was something else. Eduardo was behind the steering wheel when we first drove up these hills.

As soon as you realize that you’ve been climbing up for miles it hits you: “What goes up…”  Exactly. Poor Eduardo’s face was white like a ghost as we began descending and passing by altitude road side signs that read 10,000 feet.

When you begin to go down these mountains you have a combination of fast drivers, slow drivers and truck drivers. All of a sudden you see yourself trying to keep control of a vehicle while traveling on a downhill obstacle race. It is hard to ignore the thought of the possibility of your brakes failing as you come down. “The number of accidents due to brakes malfunction in the USA is…” Never mind, I said to my self as I contemplated sharing some road trip statistics with my already nervous brother behind the wheel.  

You kind of get used to it after a while and once you get to that comfort zone you can actually begin to enjoy the magnificent landscapes of this route. This scenery was my favorite part of the road trip. So amazing that is hard to keep your eyes on the road. We stopped at as many sight seeing exits as we could.

After sunset we took an exit into Richfield, Utah where we spent the night.