French Canada Trip: Day Two, Part Two (Ohio, Monroe, Michigan, and the border crossing into Ontario)

Head back to Part One of Day Two, starting the day in Kentucky, here.


If the morning of day two seemed leisurely, than the rest of the day should be seen as jam packed. I waved goodbye to the warm, welcoming hills of northern Kentucky and grudgingly greeted Ohio.

I'll come right out and say it: Ohio is my least favorite state in the United States. But on that note, I don't think it's a terribly dangerous statement to make. The meme of an astronaut holding his helmet and trudging down a lonely country lane comes to mind. It goes something like: "9 of 10 NASA astronauts are from Ohio, meaning they'd rather leave earth than live in Ohio." And I can't help agreeing with it.

In summer 2015, I was pulled over while driving through Ohio. I'd gotten so angry at being held in endless groups of traffic that would drift from 65 to 70 to 75 back down to 60 again that I'd resorted to sustained honking and some close passes. The officer was nice and let me go with a warning, but Ohio remained a sour state to pass through.

Cincinnati was the first major city I encountered, and probably the most interesting to see in Ohio. Its position and history made it a mecca for historic churches, factories, and houses. Past Cincy, there was little more of interest in Ohio. Luckily, the construction that led to my frustrating traffic scenarios in 2015 had finally wrapped up, and I avoided an Ohio Pull-Over this time.

Crossing into Michigan gave me the same feeling of accomplishment it had that past summer. Mostly the "Wow, this is so far away for my 14 year old car to be from home." But also because I really didn't expect to like Michigan as much as I do.

The people here are extremely friendly, and have a hard-won spirit that is admirable no matter where you're coming from. When I was in Detroit last year, I saw a magnificent city that had fallen on hard times, but I got the feeling that its base was still there, plugging away at making their city an incredible power once again.

An afternoon stop was in order. I wanted to get lunch and poke around the small lakeside town of Monroe, which is only about 10 miles from Michigan's southern border with Ohio. Monroe has a surprisingly long and interesting history for a town of only 20,000 people. The French landed in the area as early as 1679 and found it an extremely effective area for growing grapes. Thus, many buildings and markers in town still bear "Raison" in their names.

After the Revolutionary War, the portion of land that is present-day Monroe was given to Canadian Francis Navarre for use as a European settlement. The area was loosely populated throughout the 19th century, seeing a bloody massacre during the War of 1812. Thanks to its proximity to Detroit, Monroe was officially settled as a town by migrants from New England shortly after the war.

I left Monroe with the Canadian border in my sights. By about 3:30, I crossed the Ambassador bridge, which would take me across the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario.

My crossing went smoothly, and I was immediately hit by Vegas Strip-like border town fodder. The signs were in km/h, and I was lucky enough to have the accompanying readout on my speedometer. Along the strip, there was every single American fast food restaurant you could think of, one sign stacked on top of the other. You'd think it was our only export unless you knew of the Chrysler plant located a few blocks north. Soon the Windsor strip gave way to a pristinely manicured four lane interstate.

100 km/h. This was the speed limit, and I'd learn to get used to it, since it was the highest I ever saw during my time in Canada. For quick reference, that's 62mph, which is not fast; not at all. I decided to stick to 70mph, which was nearly 20km/h over--which I was warned multiple times by blue and yellow signs would earn me "demerit points," whatever those were.

While we're still on conversions, I'll bring up fuel costs and rest stops. 90 kilometers (about 60 miles) into my journey I stopped at my first ONRoute. Ingenious, these beautiful, modern rest areas are spaced smartly every 80 kilometers along Ontario's highways. At any given ONRoute, you'll find at least five choices of restaurants--nearly always including a Tim Horton's-- large, clean restrooms, and a fuel station. At my first fuel stop, I discovered that gasoline is sold in liters in Canada. This meant the 40 Canadian dollars I'd spent to fill my tank only got me about 8 gallons of fuel; half a tank in my car. So I started a new transaction, and realized I needed to pay more attention.

The drive from Windsor to Toronto, where I'd be stopping for the night, was 230 miles. By the time I hit the first wave of truly biblical Toronto traffic, it was already dark. The sheer amount of cars on the road was stunning, even by my Atlanta traffic standards. The highway around Toronto followed a familiar design to those of you familiar with some bigger city systems in the United States. One group of lanes is split and contains groups of exits, while the adjacent lane is divided from it, allowing traffic to flow more freely for those not getting off at local exits. Regardless, I sat in stop and go for about half an hour before I reached my penultimate exit.

An update on the fall colors--getting there, but still with a ways to go. 

After getting off the interstate, I immediately began to pick up on what makes Toronto such an amazing city: its neighborhoods. Driving through Toronto, and up to my destination near the University of Toronto and Chinatown, put me in mind of Brooklyn, with its diverse but distinct boroughs teeming with life. By the time I reached my hostel, I'd decided that Toronto was just a slightly more orderly New York City, a point that's been made by many voices larger than mine many times before.

My choice for the night was Planet Traveler, a multi-story hostel that charges a very reasonable $20 a night for a bunk bed in an eight-person dorm. On the tour, I was quickly shown the centerpiece and selling-point of this place: a rooftop deck that overlooked the downtown skyline. I settled in at the barbeque that was taking place that night, snapped a few pictures, and solidified my game plan for the next day's exploring.

Click here to go to Day Three, a tour of Toronto.

French Canada Trip: Day Two, Part One (Central Kentucky)

Click here to go back to Day One.

6:20AM, and I'm back on the road after a breakfast of biscuits and scrambled eggs. It felt like I hadn't stopped at all, that I'd just hit pause on the night, then play again after a few minutes of rest. But slowly the sky began to grow a dark navy blue as morning took its time over the Bluegrass state.

Kentucky is one of my favorite states to drive through. Beautiful rolling hills line every highway with quaint, white farmhouses peeking in on the hills and valleys. As I neared Lexington, I picked up a talk radio station devoted entirely to horse racing. An announcer discussed his early influences in between ads for Lexus of Lexington, Kentucky bourbon, and an upscale graphic design agency.

Interstate 75 bypasses the city of Lexington, but gives you a great survey of the land used to breed winning racehorses, something this region of Kentucky has long been famous for. In 1875, Churchill Downs, a horse racing track in Louisville, held the first Kentucky Derby. Before that, horse racing had been mainly based on the east coast. (think Belmont Park in New York and Laurel Park in Maryland) When New York state was the first state to ban gambling in 1821, many breeders and race enthusiasts who thrived on race betting headed to the hills of central Kentucky, where gambling was legal and land was plentiful and cheap.

The city of Lexington has gone through several measures in the past century to ensure that pastures outside the city remain intact. Mostly, they've mandated that tracts of green space stay open within city limits, requiring new neighborhood developments to adhere to their standards of land use and placement.

Dawn broke as I headed north, after skirting the eastern edge of Lexington. A golden sunrise cast shadows from mature oaks set against vast, open spaces. Gradually, the houses and exits dropped off once again, and the land stayed rural for the 83 miles from Lexington to the outskirts of Cincinnati.

Water towers were a signature sign of each town in northern Kentucky, so I soon made habit of snapping a picture each time one came into view.

Small towns dot the hilly landscape here, and most of the land is used to train horses. Homes are few and far between until I get closer to Cincinnati and the Ohio border.

Click here to read Part Two of Day Two, the long drive from Kentucky to Toronto.

Adventures in the Beehive State (And a history of Utah's Interstate 70)

"We have to turn back," he said.

Asa was right. We pulled off at a rest stop, the only speck of human development for at least twenty miles. But this wasn't like any rest stop I had ever stopped at before. This one overlooked a magnificent valley, and a highway--the one we'd been on-- that zig-zagged gracefully through an impossibly small opening between two peaks. 

A woman sold jewelry laid out on a Navajo blanket behind an F-150, and we walked past her, out onto a narrow rock outcropping that gave us a closer view of the ridge in front of us.

We were looking at Spotted Wolf Canyon, a small part of the San Rafael Reef, a geographical feature that stretched 45 miles across the horizon. But what we were also seeing was an engineering marvel; what one engineer called "one of the most significant highway feats of its time." We had blasted through this fascinating reason without so much as a cruise control dip, and we needed to explore.

The San Rafael Reef is part of the San Rafael Valley, which sprawls out over most of Eastern-central Utah. It's one of the most sparsely-populated regions in the state and before construction of I-70, which began in 1957, the few residents who lived in the area were very nearly landlocked, with only rudimentary roads connecting them to larger cities outside the valley. Much of the land, which is now kept under the watchful eye of the Bureau of Land Management, contains some of the oldest rocks on earth--some dating back as far as 2.2 billion years.

Connecting this desolate region to the rest of the United States was far from a new idea, even in 1957. The earliest plans were for a transcontinental railroad, which would link southern California to the east coast. Portions of the railroad were built in other states, but no ground was ever broken in the San Rafael Swell, due to the difficulty of the terrain. These railroad plans would later prove vital in the construction of I-70, one of the only interstates in the country to be built where no roads had been before.

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Exploration. Adventure. These were the reasons we'd set out on this trip ten days earlier with minimal camping equipment, a few changes of clothes each, and two seventy-count boxes of Nature Valley Sweet and Salty Nut bars. We'd been through no fewer than five state parks and geographic regions ranging from the Mississippi River Delta to the high desert. Charging through this picturesque landscape felt like an undeniable wrong, but a wrong that we would soon make right.

After snapping some photos which would easily look at home on a $9.99 calendar, we headed back the way we came, towards a geological formation that bears shocking resemblance to a human breast. The Wickiup, named for a one-room Native American dwelling found in the southwest, should not be confused with the more deliberately-named Mary's Nipple, an 11,000-foot peak in central Utah, though. Wickiup, a much smaller peak, stands out dramatically against the backdrop of the valley--its bright red summit composed of Moenkopi Shale, possible evidence of past volcanic activity.

Soon, we reached the exit. A dirt-road paralleling the interstate and a mound of gravel are the only signs human civilization has ever been through here. Then we see the trail. It's an unpaved, rocky tract that looks more suitable for four-wheelers than for cars, and dips down and snakes into the valley below. To the west, the sky starts to darken, and we have another decision to make. 

The car that accompanied us on our Pick Your Own Adventure trip wasn't exactly the most suited for the job. Our KIA Sorento was produced close to home in West Point, Georgia, but far from the sandstone fields of rural Utah. The Lambda II V6, a 276-horsepower unit mated to a brilliantly-ratioed 6-speed gearbox, wheezed as it tried to keep up with the 90-mph cruise control settings we demanded through much of the southwest. If we wanted to take this trail, we'd have to make due with the KIA's front-wheel drive and an engine that produced massive amounts of torque steer.

The Sorento hides in a different desert, this one's north of Phoenix.

Lightning struck far in the distance, but we decided to press on. I could see where a slight trail wound its way through outcrops of craggy rocks and spindly trees. It took quite a bit of back and forth to snake the SUV through, but soon we approached the heavily-rutted trail head. The first obstacle was a steep downhill dogleg scattered with sharp rocks. Asa jumped out to clear a path, and I eyed a strange button on the KIA's dashboard.

Next to the traction control button, an illustration of a car on a 45-degree slope. I knew what it meant. It was some sort of hill descent mode, a computerized system that uses the brakes and low gears to gently guide the family-hauler down steep embankments. Of course, I'd never had to use it before, and this seemed like the perfect time to try it out.

This photo, taken inside a fancier KIA with parking sensors, shows the hill descent button.

Asa stood at the bottom of the hill ready to guide me through, making sure I dodged some of the bigger, sharper rocks that wouldn't budge. With hill descent engaged, I let go of the brakes, and instantly realized I had made a big mistake. The Sorento lunged down the hill in a freefall until the brakes finally grabbed, jerking the car to a halt. But by that time, I had already reached the bottom of the hill in a cloud of dust. KIA's off-road division, if there is such a thing, has some wrinkles to iron out.

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We were slowly but steadily leaving the interstate behind, blazing our way through landscape that looked, at times, more Mars than wild west. And our only markers were the rutted paths from those who came before us. Once you pass through Richfield and Salina, I-70 climbs to the top of Wassatch plateau. At 7,923 feet, it marks the highest point in Utah's interstate highway system.

With a population of 2,393, Salina is the last town before Fruita, Colorado--195 miles to the east-- with a population of more than a few hundred people. On the opposite side of Wassatch plateau sit the town of Emery and the unincorporated community, Moore. Green River, the next closest town, is 70 miles away. From Green River to Fruita, there are a handful of unincorporated communities, census designated places, and ghost towns--the highest populations among these couldn't fill a city bus.

Remnants of Cisco, Utah, a ghost town 25 miles from the Colorado border which was once a water-refilling stop for steam locomotives.

The Utah Department of Transportation estimates that the I-70 project, totaling 231 miles, cost $183.5 million to complete. It's one of the longest portions of highway constructed at one time, and 3.5 million cubic yards of rock had to be excavated just to carve through Spotted Wolf Canyon. The final portion of I-70 in Utah follows the Book Cliffs, and is included as part of the Dinosaur Diamond Historic Byway, which follows the Old Spanish Trail, a trading route used from Native American times up through the late 19th century. This route, made up of several Utah highways the run north to south, encompasses six national parks, which include Arches National Park and Flaming Gorge National park; it also passes through several national forests. The entire interstate, not just the Utah portion, runs 2160 miles in total, finding its end on the western edge of Baltimore, Maryland.

Delicate Arch, the most recognized in Arches National Park outside of Moab, has become a symbol of Utah. It's been featured on the state's license plates since 1992.

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But we were still plundering away in the back country of Emery County, where the population density hovers around two people per square mile. Asa stood on the passenger's side running board, taking turns Snapchatting our adventure and hopping off to clear jagged rock piles. To avoid beaching the KIA, with its modest 7.5-inch ground clearance (a Subaru Outback has 8.7), required some delicate maneuvering. The thunder rumbled closer, and the sky was getting darker, but we kept moving. Soon, we reached a gate.

We expected to see a sign that read along the lines of: "You've already come too far, turn around to avoid certain execution. No one will find you out here. No one will even know you're gone. We're the only ones who hear what happens in the valley."

Instead, the sign read more to the tine of: "Be sure to close the gate behind you. Four-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive is recommended beyond this point."It was downright egging us on. But the encroaching storm was worrisome. Whatever off-road disadvantages the KIA had made up with torque and my aggressive approach would be lost if the rain started to come down. I pictured the Sorento wallowing around like a pig in the mud, front wheels spinning angrily, hopelessly, the engine wailing into the abyss and no one would even hear it.

An ominous view to our southwest, as dark clouds encroach on a nearby peak.

We decided to turn back, but the trip back up, as is usually the case, would be tougher. The washboard, level sections were fine, but soon, I reached the first hill. I'd need to use a different strategy for going uphill; I feared what would happen if the KIA's thin summer tires gave too much slip halfway up. My solution was to charge the hill. It's like ripping off a band-aid, right?

The KIA bounced and thrashed around, but somehow made it up the steep hill without much slip. It was a cake walk from there, and soon we were back where we started, ready to rejoin I-70 once again and head back toward the Reef.

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In 2002, government officials from Emery County, along with Utah's then-governor Mike Leavitt, joined in hopes of creating a national park in the San Rafael Valley. Area residents hated the idea, referencing the 1996 dedication of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. President Bill Clinton was then campaigning for re-election, and dedicated the park at a ceremony held at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Clinton had used the Antiquities Act, a 1906 Congressional act giving the president the right to create national monuments from areas of public land. Boundaries for the new park were drawn without knowledge or consent of local residents, and memory of the incident was still fresh in the minds of rural Utah residents in 2002.

San Rafael Swell National Monument would have been authorized by the Antiquities Act under then-president George W. Bush. Predictably, the effort made little momentum, and a referendum proposed by the governor to Emery County residents did not pass. 

And so the San Rafael Valley remains largely unchanged, the same as it's been for hundreds, even thousands of years. I-70 and Emery County's handful of residents are the only things occupying the wild landscape.

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Late in the afternoon we reached Green River, the first sign of civilization for the past hundred miles. The dark clouds had moved out, leaving only a clear, jonquil sky. 

Asa and I paused at the gas station to take another look at our KIA. It had a new layer of dust caked on. And we had added another adventure to our list.