LONG BEACH TO ANNAPOLIS AND BACK! Day 3: 540 miles, 9 hrs

Denver to Topeka.

Monday morning we awoke...well, that's not quite right. We'd been up practically all night as a result of facing a commuter rail line that apparently runs overnight. Every half hour or so our sleep was disturbed by the passing of the one the trains, which, as a result of it crossing a major intersection, blew its horn repeatedly.

Exhausted, we packed our gear and headed down to the lobby with the expectation of hitting the road and getting some breakfast once we were out of town. The desk agent at the Doubletree was upset to hear of our night, explaining that the hotel had repeatedly complained to the transit agency, but apparently to no avail.

She offered extra Hilton points and a free breakfast at the restaurant as a gesture of concern. Not being completely asleep we gratefully accepted both. It doesn't make up for the lost sleep, but Hilton responsiveness once again proved why they're one of my favorite chains.

We hit the road around 8:30 - later than planned, but without the need for a stop to eat - and immediately encountered Denver Monday morning traffic. Our hope had been to be far enough east of the city proper to escape it, but best laid plans and all that...

Within  a few miles the traffic thinned and we were off across a soggy and flat landscape. Nothing ahead of us but miles as they say. Eastern Colorado and western Kansas are, indeed, as flat as their reputations suggest. And, unlike Utah, which still gets extra brownie points from me for having an 80 mile per hour speed limit - you're restricted to 75 mph. Cheating you can get that up to 79 or so without getting the attention of the local highway patrol.

The miles rolled by and other than a handful of stops at various rest areas not a lot happened. The rain became intense for ten minutes or so, recalling a few other drives through Tornado Alley. I kept my eyes on the road AND the horizon, figuring the other drivers would probably alert me to any problems through their own actions. (Having California plates on our car I figured NOBODY would look to me for help spotting a tornado...)

The miles curled by and gradually the rain lessened until stopping altogether. Passing into Kansas

was uneventful. The road meandered over the landscape slightly, though the majority of the time it was straight. We attracted the attention of a highway patrolman who - likely seeing the Cal plates - paced us for a mile or so in my blind spot. Apparently unhappy we were obeying the laws he gunned his engine and roared ahead to ostensibly handle something down the road. Sorry to have disappointed you, officer.

(As much as I hate to say it, in certain states having California plates is a liability. They can get you unwanted attention if you do something to bring attention to yourself. I have stories but will save those for another time.)

We stopped in Hayes, Kansas for lunch at a terrific place called Thirsty's Brew Pub and Grill. It's massive inside, divided up into a variety of areas - sports bar, restaurant, exhibition room, event rooms and main stage. Despite its size, it being Monday we at one point were the sole customers in the place. Disconcerting but the very, very nice waitress (Mackenzie) told us the evenings and weekends it was wall-to-wall bodies. We were attracted to the formal stage in the middle room - yes, there were several large rooms in this place - with a piano and sign that read "The Jazz Cafe". But overall we were truly enjoying the ambience, Mackenzie's friendliness, and the food.

She filled us in on the history of the place and some of the new owner's plans for the future. It's a very cool spot and great for live music. Plus, our sandwiches were good enough we both decided they were the best meal of the trip so far.

Leaving Hayes we poured it on. The lunch was a late one, and we still had some three hours to get to Topeka for the evening. In Salina we switched driving, with my wife taking the wheel. This enabled me to rest, and make a series of posts to Instagram and Facebook. The countryside became less flat and more lightly rolling hills, getting greener and more forested along the way.

Topeka eventually arrived, and we piled out of the car, exhausted. The hotel, a Ramada, is quite nice and the staff quite friendly. The room is comfortable, but we both noticed the sound of a train horn...this...may be a problem...

(More tomorrow.)

LONG BEACH TO ANNAPOLIS AND BACK! Day 2: 542 miles, 9 hrs

Beaver, Utah to Denver.

It was a very long day, hence the upload this morning (Monday) versus the intended last night.

We began the day with a pleasant breakfast at the hotel in Beaver. It was your typical hotel "free breakfast" fare, with scrambled eggs, sausage patties (which are quite flat and suspiciously uniform), hash browns as the "warm" breakfast, along with a variety of toasts, bagels, cereals and the like. Coffee and juices, of course.

Make it a double?

Particularly coffee. I found myself in need of several cups, knowing full well we'd be on the open road and away from facilities for a good chunk of the day.

We left the Best Western at around 8:30, just about on schedule. Heading up Interstate 15 we transtioned to Interstate 70 a half hour or so into the drive. The morning sunlight and partial clouds gave some beautful lighting to the central Utah valley, but almost as soon as we started east the terrain changed.

Spotted Wolf Canyon

Utah, I will say without too much fear of contradiction, is blessed with a stunning landscape. Each curve in the highway inevitably leads to another gasp as you encounter a spectacular vista of one sort or another. I would suggest that the portion of Interstate 70 between the I15 cutoff and the beginnings of the Utah desert is perhaps the most spectacular stretch of asphalt in the interstate highway system. (And for our readers who have never driven the system, that's saying quite a bit. There are staggeringly beautiful stretches of highway through New Mexico, California, Colorado - and others I'm sure will be screamed at the screens of offended travelers in other states).

I will, at some point, attempt to do it justice in a future column, but the drive was jawdropping, as you can make our in just one vista to the right. This is the overlook down through Spotted Wolf Canyon (above left). It's a divide through which the interstate feeds like a wandering python.

Once we emerged from the mountainous wonderland, the desert floor beckoned. We stopped briefly Live in L.A.) and counted the miles until we passed into Colorado.

in Green River for a bio break and water, then headed back out across the eastern Utah desert. It's a lovely drive, and the temperatures were kept relatively cool by the previously mentioned cloud cover, and a seasonal haze which obscured distant landmarks. We simply kicked back, popped in some Rippingtons (

After a stop for lunch in Grand Junction the highway heads up into the Rockies, but not uuntil after passing a bunch of vineyards off to the south. I'd known they produce wines in Colorado, but hadn't internalized it - seeing the large nature of some of the operations was bit of a surprise. However, due to the nature of a cross-country drive it's not a good idea to do much wine tasting. I chalked this up to "future reference" and watched them disappear in the rear-view.

The Colorado...in Colorado

The Rockies get off to a gentle start, but clearly you are mountainous terrain. The slope is gradual in some parts an steeper in others, with large open meadowlands interspersed. Our altitude kept on a general upward direction and you could begin to feel the effects of the height. A light dizziness - nothing serious - and the feeling of breathing just a touch more deeply.

One of the rarely mentioned aspects of this portion of the drive is that the Colorado River parallels the highway - or, more accurately, the other way around. In some of the deeper grooves the river takes on a whitewater flow, whereas at others it might be a gentle float. And, as expected, there were dozens of rafters, fishermen and others willing to play. We pulled over at one point into one of the several rest stops to wander around and take a few shots of the river. It was both a great way to stretch the legs, and a pleasant respite from the heavily trafficked scramble up the hill.

A second stop, more extended than the first, came in Vail. Considered to be one of the premiere ski

Very expensive coffee

resorts in the world, Vail is a lovely little resort with shopping, restaurants and other activities, and it's directly off the interstate at 8000', meaning it's pretty convenient for a quick drop-by. We spent an hour or so sitting and watching some school-aged children playing soccer in the main square's play area, sipping at lattes and munching a couple of bagels. (Just an hour of parking cost a whopping $20, making the lattes and bagels the most expensive snack ever.)

From Vail it's a steep ascent to the summit - there are two, in fact. The first, at roughly 10,000' is misleading. The highway continues to ascend to the cities of Frisco and Silverthorne, and from there it's a steep grade up to the Eisenhower/Johnson Tunnels at 11,158', a statistic which worried us greatly considering my wife's well-documented altitude sickness. (She passed out on Mt Haleakala in Hawaii. At that's only 10,032'.) Other than a splitting headache, which receded quickly once we achieved lower elevations down the far side of the tunnel, she reports no lasting ill effects. I am now for-sworn to much lower altitudes for the remainder of the trip.

The rush down the hill, despite encountering weekend homeward-bound traffic, was eventless, and finally checked into our hotel at around7pm, retiring for a light dinner and what was, in the end, a very disappointing sleep - the hotel, a Doubletree, was among the loudest I have ever encountered between a noisy ice machine, noisy neighbors and the constant horn-blowing of a light-rail train as it passed the hotel only a few dozen yards away.

(All of which was finished off with a nice Ultimat Martini, of course...)

Today we're off to Topeka. Follow along of Twitter and Instagram for regular updates....