Colorado to Las Vegas

The drive from Colorado into Utah (on our way to Las Vegas) made us feel like we were on the moon. The road was almost as bad….

We found out how these “ranchers” get around their ranch. They have their own airport.

Then we came to what was called the Green River, probably named because you drive for miles and see nothing but brown, and then all of a sudden there is greenery, next to the river.
At first I thought the hills had been stripped mined, but I found out they are in their natural state….I thought these hills looked like coal and later found out they are called Coal Cliffs.

As we started to head up a mountain, I was talking to my sister-in-law, Nanette, and had to keep putting the phone down to snap a picture. I finally lost cells and never did call her back because I was too busy snapping picture after picture. The rocks that just shot up in the air are spectacular.

This was my view
As we ascended the “mountain”

We stopped at one of the overlooks to take pictures. The magnificent cliffs, canyons, knolls and spirals are mostly cut from the 190 million Navajo Sandstone formation. Winds carried sandstone to this area and deposited it in sand dunes hundreds of feet high. As wind shifted the massive sandunes, the sands were deposited in a whirl of layers. Buried over eons of geological time, the sands ceased their movement and turned to stone. Water releases the grains of sand from the grip of stone. Even in this arid climate, water is the prime agent sculpting the stone into canyons, arches, and pinnacles.

This area was also a hiding place for famous outlaws, like Butch Cassidy, who escaped into these badlands with as many as 1,400 horses stoen from ranchers in California. Spanish explorers foged the trail about 1800. Later it became a route for slave traders. Native Americans were sold for as much as $200 each in Mexico City. Imagine what was in the minds of those prisoners as the traveled through this rugged area.

Almost to the top….

The formations were incredible.

We finally made it to the top (we think).

Just when you thought you saw any and every type of terrain, something new pops up.

We’ve been lucky most of this trip with hardly any traffic, as we got closer to Las Vegas, we were greeted with traffic, smog and 109 degrees in temperature!

I think we were nuts to leave Colorado, but we wanted to meet up with my daughter-in-law’s sister, Julie and her fiancé, Sean.

Pendleton, Oregon

Day 35, We drove to Pendelton, Oregon for a one nighter. When we came up over a hill and saw the beautiful fields of yellow (canola), I quickly grabbed my camera. I had never seen such color.

Also while driving we saw a Budweiser Semi Truck driving through a beautiful neighborhood just off the highway. We didn’t know if he was lost or delivering. If he was delivering, what a party that would have been!

We would like to redesign the trip to add a day in Pendelton, Oregon. What a cute little town, with a lot of cowboy history. We started at “Hamley’s,” located right on Main Street.

I didn’t have a clue as to what it was. Boy did I get a cowboy lesson! We went in the store to find that they hand make saddles and that anybody who is anybody orders their saddle from Hamley’s. They sell cowboy hats, belts, clothing, leather items, robes.

They had a handmade rawhide “lasso” robe that is selling for $1,800!!!!!! I thought my son, Robby, had an expensive saddle, but these saddles start at $5,000 and go up to $50,000. Needless to say, we just looked.

Out from nowhere came a salesman, Parley Pierce, who asked if he could help us. We started talking to him and he told us the story of the building. The building was the original building from when the company started 107 years ago as a family business. All the famous cowboys you’ve read and heard about have been patrons of this store, Wild Bill, John Wayne, all the professional rodeo cowboys, even Paul McCartney is one of their present patrons. As we walked around the store, Parley stayed with us and we kept wondering why he was following us. Certainly he knew we weren’t going to buy anything, then we thought maybe he was making sure we didn’t steal anything…… But we concluded he enjoyed pointing out all the unique items in the store and telling us the history behind them. THEN WE FOUND OUT, he was not a sales clerk, he was one of the OWNERS!!!! How lucky we were to have run into him. We took a gazillion pictures and after spending too much time in the store, told him we had to leave because we wanted to check out the Hamley’s Steakhouse. He told us he would take be happy to give us a tour of the back way over to the steakhouse. It was unbelievable!

He took us to a huge room upstairs decorated like an old time saloon, which they use for parties and what a beautiful HUGE bar!

The bar was purchased from a saloon in Montana where they had a sign, DO NOT CARVE IN THE BAR. Well, a cowboy walked in and stuck his knife right into the top of the bar. The bartender shot and killed him. The bar has been refinished but you can still see the blood spot. The chairs and tables in this room are all from different saloons in the West..

They also acquired the backdrop from the movie Far And Away starring Tom Cruise
In the cattlemen’s club room, they have an apothecary that was made in the late 1800s in Montana, which they found in Belgium! They bought it and had it shipped back to Pendleton.
It is huge. It was the whole length of the wall and then some.
These rooms were upstairs in the building so we worked our way over to the Steakhouse.

Downstairs in the restaurant was a saddle handmade by Hanley’s and handpainted by a 90 year old nun in 1959.

The bank front was the actual bank front which was robbed by Butch Cassidy.

The liquor cabinet is located in the restaurant area. It came with the upstairs famous bar, but was too big to put upstairs.
The ceiling of the restaurant actually won in a ceiling contest! We had never heard of such a thing, and neither had the owners. One of their customers came in, took a picture of the ceiling and entered it into the contest. It’s all stamped tin. The lights hanging from the ceiling were bought from the Stardust hotel in Las Vegas. We were amazed at all the items that the owners have found to add to their collection in their building which makes it so unique.

Again, I have to say, we were so lucky to meet Parley and receive a personal tour. He is a wealth of information about the entire area.

We also found that there are underground tunnels which housed businesses back in the day. We were told that they are better than the tunnels in Seattle. The woman who bought the candy store said she owned the store for 1 year before she found there was a secret door in the basement which led to a tunnel that goes all the way to the state prison! Supposedly the tunnels were built so that famous and political figures could use the tunnels to secretly visit the brothels.

After our trip meeting with our guests, we hopped back into the car to have dinner at Hamley’s Steakhouse. Their food was delicious!