FROM TUCSON TO SALT LAKE CITY

I had a final exam on the last day of my rotation in Tucson, and after that I rushed back to my temporary apartment to pack up my belongings and hit the road. After cramming everything in my Chevy Cruze once again I headed north on I-10. I had never driven between Arizona and Utah before, so when setting out, I didn’t yet realize that ahead of me was probably the most beautiful drive of my life.

The beauty started as soon as I left Tucson with desert mountains on the west and east of I-10. There was a brief interruption in the great scenery as I fought my way through the NASCAR event that is the highway system around Phoenix, but it quickly resumed thereafter. As I drove through Flagstaff, with its coniferous forests and Humphreys Peak (the tallest point in Arizona) I made a mental note to return there one day (which I ended up doing in November of 2020). From there it was only about an hour more to my first stop: The Grand Canyon.

Some would consider it sacrilege to even think about visiting the canyon unless you have at least a full day to devote to the endeavor. And having now completed a 5 day rim to rim to rim backpacking trip across it in January of 2021, I retrospectively tend to agree. However, at this point I had never seen it and I wasn’t about drive past it and miss out on the opportunity. After all, I didn’t know when or even if I’d ever be back. So I pulled into the entrance gate, bought a year-long national park pass, and set out for a quick stroll along the south rim.

Seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time is something you really can’t put into words. So I won’t try too hard. Simply put, the experience was overwhelming. Pictures, although a bit better than words, also fail to capture the canyon’s true grandeur. Pictures allow you to appreciate the many shades of red, orange, and brown of its walls, but once three dimensional space is compressed onto a two dimensional medium, the sense of scale is lost.

Although I desperately wanted to stay and stare at the canyon until it was dark, the thought of 8 more hours of driving loomed over my head. So I reluctantly took one last look at the canyon and headed back to my car, swearing to myself that I’d come back someday for an even more grand adventure (see what I did there?).

Feeling refreshed and inspired by what I had just experienced, I drove eastward out of the National Park land along the south rim before turning north toward Page, AZ. As I neared this small town, I realized that both my car and body needed a refueling. As is typical on my roadtrips, I had essentially forgotten to eat all day. I eyed a gas station next to a McDonalds and for the sake of efficiency, stopped at one then the other before getting back on the road. I had barely gotten one of my McChickens out of the to-go bag when I found myself driving across a bridge over a beautiful dam and adjacent lake. Not being one to pass up a beautiful viewpoint, I pulled into a parking lot. 

I had accidentally stumbled upon the Glen Canyon dam and Lake Powell. If I hadn’t just seen the Grand Canyon a few hours before, this would’ve been the most beautiful thing I’d seen that week. I got out, heavily processed chicken sandwiches getting cold in my car, and walked along a concrete path which led to a point overlooking the dam and Lake Powell. Being monsoon season, there were rain clouds out in the distance over the water with an occasional bolt of lightning connecting with the ground. There were all of two other people there, and the only sounds I heard were a gentle breeze, the distant lightning, and the soft spray of water coming from a sprinkler behind me landing on blades of grass. I relished the relative silence, the picturesque view, and the fact that I had stumbled upon all of this at what seemed to be the perfect time. I stood there for a while, just looking. But again, looming over me was a necessity for progress toward Salt Lake City. I got back in my Chevy Cruze, quickly ate the rest of my food, and headed north. 

It was now late in the evening and what I’m sure would’ve been amazing scenery was obscured by darkness. Outside of the occasional flash of lightning, the only thing I saw out my insect-laden windshield were the lines of the road. Hours passed like this, audiobook playing in the background, before I eventually needed to stop for gas again. I wasn’t exactly sure where I was in the state of Utah, but I pulled over at the first gas station I found. Unfortunately for me, it was closed. 

But it was next to a restaurant with a cyan and pinkish neon sign that said “Thunderbird Restaurant” with another just below it that read, “Home of the Ho-made Pies”. There was a classic feeling about it. No mention of any particular type of cuisine. Just a “restaurant” sitting there on the side of a rural highway surrounded by trees somewhere in Utah. Like the Grand Canyon a few hours before, I told myself I’d revisit this place sometime in the future.

Skipping forward in time a bit, I serendipitously drove past this restaurant again driving east on my way out of Zion National Park. It was a moment of sudden realization that a few months prior, I had driven north on the perpendicular road. It was at this point that I actually went into the restaurant and bought one of their “ho-made” pies. Anyway, back to the story at hand.

With an unsuccessful attempt at getting gas and no other fuel options available, I had no choice but to keep driving north until I hit another area of commercialization. A few miles down the road was a Maverick gas station. I pulled in, filled up, and bought a coffee. At this point it was about 1am, and the urge to sleep was strong. It was the first time I ever really considered taking a nap in a gas station parking spot.

I sat there for about fifteen minutes, rested my mind, and eventually decided to get back on the road and push through for the final two hours. As I drove down the highway, windows rolled down to let the cool air outside jar me awake, I watched the miles to-go creep downward on my Google Maps app. Eventually, I made it. The AirBnb I had reserved for my month in Salt Lake City was luckily in a great neighborhood, so I spent the next hour unloading everything from my car and dropping it just inside the door of my temporary home. It was about 4am by the time my head hit the pillow, and as soon as it did, I was out. Check out the full experience in the film above!