Travelling the Rockies

I’ve always wanted to visit Yellowstone but thought I never would, as it’s well off the beaten track. But this time we were determined! Even Amtrak only took us to within 600 miles of the parks, but here was a chance to see more of the Rockies and other areas on the way. We took a car at Denver and drove in a sweeping arc, up to Yellowstone, then back to Salt Lake City, taking in four states and covering 1400 miles. You can fly into airports nearer to the parks (expensively), but I am glad we had the time to do it this way because of the variety of scenery on the way.
Colorado is one half mountains and one half planes, with Denver at the divide. We chose the mountain route, up and up through pleasant wooded countryside around Idaho Springs, an old gold rush town, then to the foot of the Rocky Mountain National Park, through increasingly sparsely populated areas set between mountain ranges. Time after time we would cross a pass to find another huge vista stretching ahead, beneath an even huger cloudscape. Now I understand the phrase the big country. We crossed the route of the Oregon Trail (about which I am reading a book) and you can only admire the spirit of the people that made this journey in a few ox carts across this desolate landscape. Desolation has its own beauty and we loved all of it.