Of COURSE they have a full size Woolly Mammoth skeleton! Just another reason Wyoming is great.
Anyway, I remember Day 15 very well still. Waking up, there was ice all over the road. This is something that still terrifies me, so the entire trip is taken cautiously. This is some of the scenery you'll see when entering Rocky Mountain National Park:
I've gotta use the bathroom so I decide to stop at a gas station. I get some gas just so they aren't mad I'm using their bathroom. Going in...what the hell? Why's this door locked? What type of bathroom has the pumps open but not the building? The roads in Rocky National Park take you through some desolate towns. There's only one other gas station and I don't even think it's open. Guess I'll have to go to the Visitors Center.
The trail I'm trying to take is Long's Peak. It's considered too dangerous to reach the top without equipment during winter months so I plan on getting as far as possible before lack of equipment stops me. About 25 minutes before reaching my destination, I get locked in traffic...due to a fire.
On the way into the park, I noticed a lot of disturbing things. First off, construction on the roads is constant. This is due to rock slides that apparently happen all the time as there's a sign that says, "ROCK CLEARING 7-5 MON-FRI EXPECT 30 MIN DELAYS". If rocks fall often enough you need a full time work force to clear them, maybe you should just build a bridge from one end of the mountains to the other.
I also saw many, many houses whose foundation (the ground) had slid out from under them, allowing the bottoms of them to fall out. Others were luckier and just had their roofs crushed by boulders.
But now, there are also fires apparently. This trip has convinced me: living in the mountains is overrated and I should never do it.
After a couple minutes in the traffic, a car ahead does a 3 point turn to turn around. Then another. The road here is VERY icy, but I've gotta use the bathroom more and more. The lady in front of me decides to turn around. She's a little old lady of at least 60. Surely if she can do it I can too; so I try.
Welp, I'm stuck. Sideways, on an icy Colorado road. Behind me is a bank full of snow and ahead of me is a cliff. There was no traffic behind me when I tried this, but now more people are coming, so people can watch as I remain in a position that I clearly had not intended to get myself into. Another Colorado driver starts to go down the hill backwards: I'm not sure if he learned from my mistake or is just showing off. Either way, I have to consider my options. Should I get out and dig? I think that's what I'm supposed to do, but I'd rather floor it and turn the wheel erratically some more. Rolling the car back and forth a few times, I finally get some traction. I slowly turn the wheel now, and success: I've escaped being stuck in Colorado ice.
There's a restaurant 3 minutes away according to GPS. I've got some time to kill waiting on the road so I'll just eat there to use their bathroom. It's a golf course restaurant, but it says "Public Welcome". Going inside...closed?! It took me 45 seconds to get from the parking lot to the door because I walked like a penguin over all the ice...now I've gotta go back.
I know there was a McDonald's somewhere. I find it 5 more minutes back and stay a bit. The irony: I'm eating something that'll probably give me a painful gut feeling to get rid of a painful gut feeling. I hear a man say to his wife, "7 (the closed road) is frozen over and they (the firemen) can't get their own people in there." Knowing this, I decide to delay for about 45 minutes for some of the ice to melt. Going back, 7 is open again. I make my way cautiously up the road until I reach my final turn: Longs Peak Road. Unlike the other roads, Longs Peak is buried in snow. I get as much speed as I can without slipping. I look right and a sign says, "THIS IS A CLASS 5 ROAD".
What the hell does that mean?! That sounds intimidating, why was I not warned about this earlier?!
Below the Class 5 sign is a literal essay of fine print explaining what Class 1-5 roads are. Not only can I not read the sheer volume while driving, I'd have to get out just to read the print. I keep going up the road, realizing maybe there's more to it than I realized. As it gets steeper, the snow starts to slow me down. Just because this is a class 5 road doesn't mean you can't plow it.
I keep going, further and further, but slowing down as I go. I'm half a mile away from my destination...
Whelp, I'm stuck. But this time, there's significantly more snow, at least 3 or 4 inches, and I'm facing up hill, in a Lexus sedan: this state really is trying to kill me. I try to give a few struggle accelerations: the car has 0 traction. Anything I try to do takes me in no sensible direction. I think this time I'll have to get out and dig. My first attempt at parking, I let off the brake and the car starts to slide back down hill: I thought that's what the parking brake was for.
Giving the car a minute to settle, I'm finally able to get out and look around. I remember seeing something once about using kitty litter to get out of the snow, but I ignored the warning in my head: I KNEW I should've bought some kitty litter.
There's an opening about 100 feet back. My first thought is that episode of King of the Hill where they were stuck on a mountain, slid backwards, and jerked into the opening to turn around. Maybe that'll work, it's a fairly realistic cartoon.
I've got no traction though...at this point, if I managed to slide that far correctly, I couldn't turn the car in that direction: I've gotta turn around here and go down forward. I look in my trunk for something I can use to get grip. I've got a Walmart sandwich, would that work? I'd rather not use clothes. I wish I had some sort of tarp...wait. I've got something. I've got something that'll work, just like kitty litter, but not the same. I've got a bottle full of mouthwash. I'd stopped using it right at the start of my trip because I'd read it dehydrates your mouth and thought it might be giving me bad morning breath (it was). It's got alcohol in it which means not only can I melt some of the ice but it won't refreeze. Solving potentially deadly problems with science; I feel like Dr. Who.
I dig out the snow around the tires and then pour mouthwash on the ice: it eats it away like acid. Beautiful.
I let the mouthwash set for a bit and get ready to drive. I do the same thing I did on the ice earlier: I just rock it a bit and when I get enough momentum, turn the wheel and pop out of the snow. The car is sideways now which somehow manages to be a better position than I was in before. I try to get it to face downhill, and it slowly turns on what must have been a world record for the tightest ever turning radius: it span like there was a pole stuck through the trunk.
I am finally facing downhill. Rolling down, I have control of the car. On my way down, there's an SUV from California stopped at the snow. The woman sees me coming down and decides to turn around and then has the audacity to ride my ass the whole way. I just escaped a mountain with mouthwash bitch, I'll slam on brakes to teach you a lesson.
I consider going to another trail. I miss the entrance to the one I was going to go to. And then I decide...screw it. I hate this place. I hate this state. The whole purpose of this trip is to see everything I want to see, and I've seen everything I want to see in this National Park. I'm leaving.
And so, I head to find a sleeping spot close to my next destination. It gets dark, and cold, and my headlights aren't very bright, isn't this new. It's going to be one of those nights: I'm gonna think I'm gonna die and end up grateful to just be alive. And so it was.
I go to sleep thinking, "I hate this state."
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