Sunday, May 21, 2006

Planes, Trains and Automobiles



I always said that I wanted to live an hour or
less from a major city, and that city should
have good transportation links. Well, I live
four hours from Denver and five from Salt Lake
City, but Grand Junction definitely has good
transportation links. Walker Field is a fairly
busy airport that has about a dozen flights a
day to three different cities connecting to the
rest of the world. For a small city, it's a pretty
nice airport, and in some ways, reminds me a bit
of Albuquerque's airport, only smaller.



Today, we visited the Amtrak station downtown.
It's housed in a not-so-great building, but has
a nice little restaurant that was packed and
very reasonable. It's rather sad though because
there is an old and closed train station on the
premises that was built in the early part of the
20th century. I've seen pictures on the web of
restoration in progress, but it doesn't look like
it's being attended to at the present. Regardless,
the Amtrak California Zephyr stops at the station
twice a day. Once eastbound toward Denver and
Chicago and once westbound toward Salt Lake and
the San Francisco Bay area. It's a nice service
for those who want to take their time traveling
across the country to enjoy the scenery, without
flying.



Running east to west on the north side of Grand
Junction is Interstate 70. I'm a big supporter
of the Interstate Highway System as it takes you
to almost every major community in the United States.
I-70 will take us to the heart of the Rockies in
under two hours and in conjunction with I-15, to
Las Vegas in seven. Another nice thing about
interstates in the west is that there's hardly
any traffic on the them. Unlike many parts of the
country, you can set your cruise control on 75 mph
and away you go. As long as gasoline prices don't
get out of hand it's a great way to travel. As of
today, the price was $2.64 per gallon for regular
unleaded. I guess we're luckier than some who are
paying well over $3.00 per gallon. Let's hope it
lasts.

1 comment:

dani said...

hey there lynn and tom...just wanted to say thanks for letting me crash in your super cool house...loved the pictures you added and the other entries as well...i think you are the only folks i know who uodate regularly...thanks again...i'll send pictures your way this week...ps...vegas was a trip, let me tell you...too much of EVERYTHING in that town...two nights are just enough for me...otherwise overload sets in :) talk soon...hope all is well and happy...thanks again...you both rock my world...dani