hey baby wanna ride yeah i wanna ride!
how warm is it what's it saying now at 23. it's 23 degrees what time in the morning there's only half
past seven yeah half past seven and it's going to get up to about 36 as well let's go to green river
green river utah so i'm in utah middle of america ish did you say middle central west
a bit it's west it's west but it's mountain time uh that's my friend rudy wearing some amazing
pink sunglasses and you're a utah native i am a utah native oh i said native i didn't sort of
native my my tea went to a d i dropped it we're in utah today and unexpectedly last night we stayed
in this town of green river and we're looking on a map and i saw that there was an amtrak station
which i hadn't planned to come to so i thought while we're here just come and see the station
so this is green river utah uh it sees two trains a day one in each direction it is the chicago to
san francisco line it's got a name hasn't it the line but california the california
zephyr is the name of the service uh but rudy has downloaded the amtrak app and discovered
an interesting piece of information because we've come for the 58 am train to find that
it is uh delayed as of now 5 hours and 14 minutes due to come in at 1 13 p.m
expediency is our middle name but it's a running joke that amtrak is always late uh
and it really is oh yes it's a running joke that amtrak spends the least amount of money on the
lowest possible service and it kind of comes out that way now this isn't really least used utah
this is really there's a train station in utah this is really let's visit a national park
because we're going to capitol reef correct but whilst at green river i thought we would just do
the amtrak station would you have to come and join me in the waiting shelter oh absolutely
and we'll pretend that we came here for for the station the whole i mean the whole time
so i really pointed out there is what i would call a portal lou what you would
call a porta potty port-a-potty a portalette and the brand name of the portalette got poop
doesn't leave anything to the imagination uh let's just really quickly do this uh
i think this genuinely is the least used station in utah because i looked up last night the fourth
amtrak stations that are in utah i mean obviously around salt lake there's the what's the commuter
service called uh the front runner i'm i'm acknowledging that that's a thing in terms
of sort of like what i would say is intercity mainline services there's only four amtrak
stations in utah do you know what they are what what the four towns going from biggest to smallest
there's salt lake city yes there's provo yes there's helper helper great name and then there's
green river where we are today and going by the fact that green river has the smallest population
i'm gonna guess this really is the least used amtrak station in utah almost certainly the
concern you're from salt lake city right so the commuter service in salt lake city is known as the
front runner how many that's that the tram or is it training there's trams as well there are
trams called tracks front runner connects provo at the south to ogden at the north it is
literally commuter rail up and down the wasatch front and how many front runner stations are there
do you know roughly at least 20 or 25. but that's mainly the salt lake city and urban area correct
okay all right but what do you make of green river uh it is definitely uh a crossroads town that
lives and dives by truck stops right uh that's all there is to it and don't forget you are here
and what are we really here to do where are we on our way to this is what the video is really about
we we are really and truly on our way to capitol reef national park today could you ask me why i'm
obsessed with visiting national parks really why are you obsessed with well with visiting national
parks oh uh because when i i was fortunate enough to drive around all of the usa in 2009 i actually
my first ever national park was a utah one because i came through murab which is just 40 miles that
way and because the arch of arches national park is on the utah license plate i kept seeing it
and when i got to moab and i was like oh that's that's the arch on the license plate so i went in
and that opened up my world to like oh i see there are these amazing things called national parks so
bra so branding works branding branding works yeah but what gets me is that in a very kind of tick
off tube stations or tick off railway stations or you know in a completed kind of way something that
day in the back of my head when i wonder how many national parks there are so that's it so
we're going to go to capitol reef yes we're going to go to capitol rooms let's go to capitol reef
white people white oh look at that look
that's it oh this is lovely through here i like this little cut here rudy i think
we're here hang on i see a sign that's dsi what does it say what does it say
Capitol Reef national park all right asus hang on are you going past the entrance
yeah the the entry place is going to be up here i'm sure oh there's the off-road entrance yep
and there's entrances for cars with only two wheel drives correct like us correct okay
we're gonna walk we're going to hickman bridge okay do we have water are you wearing a hat
have you sunscreened i have used all the sunscreens also i'm not allowed to fly my
drone here so uh no drones in national parks but what if i just want to drone on and on
blizzard lizard is it lizard it is sweet
here we go we're getting we're just talking we're getting close we've met some nice uh belgian
people uh what's it called the arch hickman arch hickman arch what's the 15 by the way 15 one
i think it's just a waypoint on that okay yeah do we walk up to the archer is this up and under it
yes we go under the arch loving it we're almost there okay it's really worn look at this though
oh there's there's going to be an echo isn't there yes there's there's an echo coming there's an echo
rudy what's your favorite type of train can you shout class 37 class 37 see i squeezed a train
reference into a video about national parks i can do it people i can do it oh my god look at that
so there's a small echo that's hickman bridge
correct which is about a kilometer hike so it's one of the easiest hikes on the trails
in uh where are we we're in capital we're in capital reef national park uh it's it's it's
impressive all national parks impressive at the end of video i'm gonna do a little model on why i
love america and national park so much but just just get some of this in just get some of this
and more importantly i can now officially tick this off my uh where's the ticket
or in the gift shop seeing as i've now today done all five utah national parks i
i kind of really i can't i have to get the pin but i think i do have to get the pin
it's 25 it's five a piece that's perfect hang but if they're no they're six a piece i think for the
individual if they're five piece individuals you should get a discount for buying the five
c you would think okay all right i buy the special edition yes set of five yes and then i rotate them
correctly and i wear like one a week for the next one correct just to confuse your friends
shall i shall i buy them live the american dream all right leave it okay okay yep
wow
what is it really that is wow you know you know what there isn't here there
is no sense of anti-disappointment with this thing
that you've made up a word no sense of disappointment and disappointment correct that's
not a word it's not a word but it's a wonderful portmanteau of uh anticipation and disappointment
what i'm uh what i'm deciding is that uh yeah this is the antis appointment thing which i'm totally
having as a word from now on like when you go to like yellowstone or yosemite they're they're well
known and and you you you kind of know what you're gonna get right when you come to capitol reef
it's like oh this is this is amazing so i'm kind of enjoying it more because of that word
you said what was it again and disappointment you had nothing to anticipate so there's no
there's no disappointment back it might be look at this little rock here it might be becoming my
favorite national park because it's so gorgeous uh so we're heading for a grand view at the end
of the scenic drive correct then uh i'm gonna stop filming we'll have a fade to black but
we'll bookend our day uh later on today as the sun is setting at a gas station petrol stop
easy
all right car parked parking handbrake on welcome to act three of the video uh you may not realize
attack three but act one was uh the station this morning act two uh was the national park this is
act three the closing section where i talk about well during 2006 to 2009 i lived in the usa at the
end of which i was very fortunate enough to take a road trip across the whole of america i went to
all 48 mainland states watch the video here uh but it led to one thing that i really really like more
than anything even maybe trains and railways and that's us gas stations at sunset come on
all right the sun is out so the shades go on but that's pertinent and important to this
story because the sun setting here is what this is all about this is the golden hour the last hour
as the sun sets casting long shadows as it is here casting long shadows across this gas station
and it's one of my favorite things possibly ever what i learned from the highs and lows good pile
bad pile good pile higher than the low pile that's a doctor who quote we'll do another one
in a minute was what i experienced when i lived in america for four years at the end of which i did a
road trip around america and i found that one of the things i really liked at the end of the day
was stopping at a gas station when you turn up here and you park your car
on the forecourt americans by the way that's a word you won't know but the concrete
of a gas station is what we in britain called a forecast americans don't have that but it's
so funny let me just adjust this thanks very much i discovered it was just something that i really
like you roll in there's the smell of gasoline you go inside the gas station there's the smell of gas
station coffee and then you get like maybe like an articulated truck or a semi as the americans
would call it rolling past outside and i could just sit here and just watch it for an hour
as the sun sets i think what i like about america and here's another doctor who quote is that uh
there's a quote from mickey in the david tennant era from rise of the cybermen where they turn up
in a parallel world he goes you know it's like everything's the same but a little bit different
and that's what the usa is like for me it's like yeah they have like you know recognizable brands
coca-cola and mcdonald's and some certain petrol stations although so is called exxon but then
it's a little bit different because they drive on the right and they pay in dollars so it's like
everything is sort of familiar but not quite the same but that is what i really really love about
it and it's just brilliant to have been able to travel around visit visit national parks and then
at the end of it all after a long day driving you get down to this like a simple gas station
with its sights and smells and you can feel the heat the heat from the sun as the sunsets have
just been warming up the concrete all day and it's fantastic and you reflect on your day's adventure
on your day's journey and in the remains of the day as the sun says you wonder about
what tomorrow might bring for another new adventure and i love it thanks for watching
you