We had a bit of a sleep-in at the hotel this morning. We stayed and the La Quinta Inn in Denver, which was rated two star but got very good reviews. We were impressed with it. It was cheap but top quality – and came with free breakfast! We ended up leaving the hotel around 0715, after we discovered that the Grand Canyon is open 24/7/52 and so knew we didn’t need to hurry to get there.
As we were driving through Colorado Springs, we decided to skip the Grand Canyon visit and the stay in Las Vegas. It will spare us a lot of time that we can spend in Canada. To replace the sacrifice of Grand Canyon, we decided to head up Pike’s Peak – the highest road in America. I’m so glad we did – it was breathtaking (literally – the peak is 14,000ft above sea level). I took lots of photos and plenty of them ended up being absolutely stunning (more credit to the scenery rather than the photographer!). Colorado has by far taken the top spot on my favourite places list.
When we crossed the border into Utah, the terrain and landscape changed dramatically. Utah was a lot more like I was expecting America to be like before I came. Dry, hot and pretty much nothing to see while driving on the interstates. We did stop in one spot to take some photos but other than that, Utah was pretty uneventful. I think we laughed the entire way across the state – although laughing leads me to coughing fits which are most unpleasent. I picked up some additional medication this morning which seems to be helping a little. It really sucks that I’ve been unwell pretty much the entire time I’ve been here.
We booked online again for a hotel in Salt Lake City and went with the same chain that we stayed with the night before. I think we’re going to flag the camping from here on in – it’s just easier (and cheap enough) to stay in motels.