From Craig it's just a gentle slope downward out of the last remnants of the Rockies, through open country covered with grass and sagebrush along the Yampa River. I had US 40 pretty much to myself -- a pleasing fallout of the Interstate system. If you want to see the country better, and avoid traffic, and you don't care that much how fast you get there -- leave the Interstates and drive the old US Highway system instead, friends! Very pretty country, my kind of terrain.

As you continue downwards you enter true desert, stark and bare.

I crossed the Green River -- another of the famed rivers of the West -- and it was actually green, both the surrounding riparian corridor and the actual water itself. Its valley floor is heavily irrigated and brilliantly verdant. On the other side of the Green US 40 starts another slow rise, but I only went as far as Vernal, UT before I stopped for the night -- a short day.

Vernal appears to be the home of the bedding-plant growers, BloomMaster -- and the town is covered in flowers. Everywhere you look there are planters and hanging baskets overflowing with brilliantly colorful blooms.