The Amazing Drive THROUGH the Rocky Mountains

I'm Robbie and this is Thomas. Together with Brian and Andrew, we make up Adventure Archives, and our next adventure would be on the coast of California. After driving from Indianapolis to Denver, I met up with Thomas and we headed a few hours south to Camp Anite and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Now it was time to begin our journey west to California to meet up with the others. First up, a six-hour drive on I-70 to Dead Horse Point State Park in Moab, Utah. Fortunately for us, the drive is a little more scenic than the stretches of I-70 we're used to. Oh, and this is Sierra. Alright. Are we sure we want to do this? We gotta do it, baby. Five hours, 40 minutes. Let's get out of Colorado. So I-70 is the national highway and it goes, I don't know where it even begins, I think somewhere in Pennsylvania. But I know I take it from Columbus to Indianapolis when I'm seeing Robbie, and then when I moved out here, I took I-70 from Indianapolis all the way to Denver. And it goes through the Rockies and I think it ends in Utah, I could be wrong, but it's like it's an American staple. We're taking it all the way. This is my first time driving through the Rockies and still part of me thinks that there's like parts of the highway that are going to be like so precariously on the edge of a snow capped mountain that it's like a thousand foot drop with no guardrail on either side. Right now it looks like they just blasted their way through the mountains. So Rod, what's the furthest you've ever driven by yourself in a day? Eight hours. You should ask me that question. Yeah, what's the furthest you've ever driven? 20 hours. 20 hours? 20 hours. That's not enough sleep. No, it was getting kind of sketchy there at the end, but that's when you start calling people you know and just say, hey, can you talk to me for four hours? Did we hang up on you when you called us? You're like, Thomas! Do you smell something? No. Oh, I do, yeah. It smells like burning rubber or something. This will be the shortest road trip ever. 30 minute road trip. One thing people may or may not know is that you always ask questions to spark a conversation. Now would be an excellent time to ask a conversation-sparking question. Would you rather never be asked a dumb question in your life, or would you rather never ask a dumb question in your life? Oh, I ask dumb questions all the time, so I'm going to have to say I would rather never ask a dumb question again. It's a question. No question is a dumb question. Except there are definitely some dumb questions. I would always rather somebody ask me a question rather than do the wrong thing because they didn't ask a question. You'd be a good boss someday. I'm your boss. You are my boss. Drive! Somebody's car is like smelling like... You smell that, Sierra? What is it, girl? Let me tell you, I feel like Dookie. Is it your stomach that's sick? Do you have a headache? It's a headache and a general feeling of nausea and disgust. I was looking at my phone earlier and I was like, God, I just get so sick of looking at the internet. And I was like, that's probably partially it, but it's also just I feel sick. So, I hope you didn't do it on just my behalf because I didn't like it. Just shave the mustache. It had to come off. We had to establish that I could do it, maintain it, and then say goodbye when it was ready to put it to bed. I hated it. I have no right to hate it, but I hated it. And I loved it at the same time. Come on, Sierra. Like a sack of jelly. Does she like driving? Yeah. Well, she doesn't hate it. She does better than any other dog we've had. She doesn't throw up. She just kind of sits there. You know, she'll entertain herself when she needs to. She seems a minimal to most situations. Except when it involves something that rolls, like skateboards or bikes or scooters. She hates those. She will try and run away. Okay, so this is Vail, it looks like. Yes. What do you know about Vail? I don't know much about Vail. I just know this is where the very, very rich go to vacation. Kind of like Jackson Hole, but I think even fancier than Jackson Hole. But Jackson Hole is getting so fancy now, too. I don't know. Quick bathroom break in Vail. There's supposed to be a visitor center somewhere. No, it's a town center, not a visitor center. Okay, I'll just run in and go to the bathroom. See you, man. Bye. Actually, I'll leave this here. Don't need my cell phone. Wait, no. In an emergency. Yeah, what are you talking about? Okay, bathroom successfully found. I did not know my bladder could hold that much. Yo, found some parking? Yeah, I think it's free. Yeah, this is like a transportation center. There was a bunch of people waiting for buses and stuff inside. Let's see, top deck parking, 6 AM. This is nice. Yeah. So actually, Thomas and I both have never been skiing before. But now that you live in Denver, I feel like that's got to happen at some point. Or maybe you'll go skiing, you'll say it sucks, and then I'll just never ski. What do you see? What do you see, Sierra? Once again, we are on the trail. This is beautiful, man. I see why people want to come out here. What a beautiful summer getaway this was. Let's go home. Alright, let's do it. I can tell you I'm going to be really hungry in about two hours. Nope. Saving myself a marriage. Not me! Alright, just another four hours. Cheers to that. So you think that we just passed the Continental Divide? Yeah, so the Continental Divide, in some places it's a visible line, in other places it's not as visible. But all the water that's east of the Continental Divide ends up in the Atlantic. All the water that's west of the Continental Divide ends up in the Pacific. Wow, that's weird. It's not a straight line either, you know. It kind of curves, but there's like a very clear line in the sand, which water goes where. Interesting. We keep seeing these gaps. There's one. Fences, yeah. They look like little dirt ramps with a fence in the middle. Apparently it's so that if wildlife get onto the freeway, they have a way to get back out. But there's a sharp drop-off afterwards, so they can't get back in. Which raises the question, how did they get out here in the first place? Living back in San Antonio, they actually had an animal land bridge over one of their highways so that wildlife could go back and forth over the highway. So it would funnel them to this highway overpass that they've added soil and trees and everything so they could go back and forth. So you've never been this far west on I-70? We've driven across the country before, but we've never driven through the Rockies. So there's a few different routes you can take. I think a lot of people take 70, but in the wintertime, 70 can be kind of sketchy because this whole road can be covered in snow. When we did this, we went through Albuquerque, Phoenix, and then Vegas, Los Angeles. So there's a train you can actually take from Denver to Moab, and maybe this is the route. Maybe this is the train that you can take. I think it's called the Mountaineer, Rocky Mountaineer, or something like that. This is a bridge. Yeah. Oh, wow, look at that. You focus on the road, Thomas. Don't let us die. I'll watch the video after. There is no guardrail right there, is there? No. Oh, cool. Look at that, man. Wow, the other lanes blow us. That's cool. You don't have a lot of space to build roads up here. Man, these new Mario Kart levels are really getting intense. Either spend a month in a fire lookout tower or a month on a thru-hike. That's a tough question. The adventuring, seeing new stuff part of me is like thru-hike all the way. But the part of me that doesn't want to be tired and cold and hungry says fire tower. I think overall I'd do thru-hike. I would do the fire tower, 100%. I don't love backpacking nearly as much as I love hiking because when you're hiking, you just have a destination, you get to that destination, then you turn around, and then you reward yourself with a great post-hike meal. There's something super appealing to me about just going from point to point to point to point. And that's what I love about backpacking. So on our left here is the Colorado River. I could be wrong, but we're going to more or less follow this river all the way to Vegas. I think it ultimately goes to the Hoover Dam and then ends up in the California Gulf. Enlighten me, Thomas. It might be a little premature, but I'm kind of getting the sense that we might be out of the Rockies and very much in Mesa country. It does look very different. Oh, perfect. Thank you so much. When I was a kid, my dad would take me to COSI. It's like that museum. I don't know if you've ever been. Afterwards, we'd go to the world's first Wendy's in downtown Columbus. I remember the first time I ordered not off the kid's menu. He got me a Dave's Classic Single. Now, every time I go to Wendy's, I got to order the Dave's Double just because I'm a little hungry. You know something I haven't done in a long time? You dip the fries in the shake. Hell yeah. You like doing that too? Hell yeah. Does that feel better? Is this better? We've got an hour and 52 minutes left to the campsite. We're going to get there just before 11. Not ideal. All right, good night, Thomas. Don't you do this to me, Rocky. Good luck to you. We're seeing some lightning in the distance, but where we're going in Moab, Utah, it looks clear. A low of 63. That sounds very enjoyable. It's a perfect city. Good night, Thomas. I'm also getting a little nervous with this rain. There, there. I'm in trouble. With any luck, we're going to be in Moab. It's not even raining right now, but, yeah, this is a little sketchy. I believe in you, Tommy. I'm still scared, though. Rain has stopped. We are 32 minutes away. With any luck, we should avoid all of the rain. There might be a very light dusting, according to the radar, but... Whoa. What was that? Cattle graze? Oh, yeah. Explain cattle graze. No. Did you just say no? A totally deserted road. It is really weird, actually, because when I hit a certain age, I just stopped being afraid of the dark. Sometimes in my house, it's dark at night, and I'm trying to walk around. I will not turn on a single light. I will feel no fear. We have to walk to ours. It's back there. That's right. Feeling good, haven't you? This is a nice campsite. Yeah, seriously. I think so, too. I'm getting swarmed by moths here. Okay, we're all in the tents. Very comfortable. Great temperature. Great stars. We're going to go to sleep now, get up early, explore the park. We'll see you tomorrow. Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoy our videos, please consider joining our Patreon community at patreon.com adventure. Patrons get early access to the videos, special live streams, commentaries, and bloopers. Maybe. We'll see. I feel like I just got a wheel seat by my dad. Wheel seat. Would you rather... What? You're telling me you want to die in a tunnel? Of all the ways to go? I'm going to have a whole mountain just collapse on you. Get in the tunnel! A 15 minute parking right here? Top deck parking? Where? To the left, right here. Where'd you say 15 minutes? Right here, it's right here. Just go in there. No, in there. Oh, 15 minute parking. I'm going to turn this off. Did you turn this off? No, no, no, it's on. So I'm going to get out and turn it off when I get out. Well, what a beautiful... Wait, what season is it? Summer. Yeah. Wow, look at those houses. I'll point at it with my beef jerky. Alright, I got another quick one. These turns are pretty sharp. I could benefit... I feel like I'm running the Death Star Trench Run. That jeep's got places to be. Oh, I'll do it. I'll need my companionship. It's like as I drift off, you go slower and slower and I have to stay away from you to keep top speed. I will annoy you until we get there. I'll make sure we make it safely. Through the power of annoyance. The power of annoyance. Is that a word? You know, they say these... Look, I was like, you know, they say these old roads are haunted. Hold me.