Colorado

We finally got away from Spicewood on Saturday, July 14th. Leaving early in the morning, we attended a memorial service in Lubbock for a dear friend of my parents, one of the last remaining members of their group .. Leete Jackson. From there we went on up to Lathrop State Park outside of Walsenburg, Colorado for a couple of nights and then on up to Buffalo Pass (on the road from Saguache to Gunnison). This CG was at 9500 feet and we thought we'd use it to acclimated .. it took 7 days for the shortness of breath and the headaches to subside. I guess as we get older it takes longer and longer?? I should also mention that we noticed all of the effects of the ongoing drought in Colorado .. it was as dry as we had seen it on all our trips going north through this area. Campfires were banned and the fire danger signs were everywhere. Luckily, the previous fires had been extinguished and the smoke and haze had dissipated.

This was our camp setup at Buffalo Pass .. very quiet and an underused camping spot. We had the whole place to ourselves. We managed to complete a few minor repairs to the trailer that needed to be done and the temperatures were delightful (highs around 75 to 80 and lows in the 40's). What a delight! This is a dry camping spot (no hookups) so we got to test out the solar panel and even linked up the satellite dish to our inverter and watched the British Open while we were camped. It was a pretty boring start to our camping but we did get a good start on our book reading projects.

This is a picture of Blue Mesa Lake (a very large lake outside Gunnison, Colorado). As you can see, it is very low as a result of the ongoing drought. Temperatures at this elevation (7500 feet) were approaching 90+ and everyone was complaining about the lack of snow from the previous winter.

Further up the lake, Devil's Pinnacles, a unique basalt formation.

From the picture on the left, turning around and looking the other way. Trees and green in the canyon .. sage and creosote the other way.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We spent a couple of nights in Gunnsion and did a small restock before heading up to the North Rim of this National Park. We had done the South Rim but heard the North was much better .. and it's true. Very nice and little used campground right by the edge (Cindy was not happy!).

Very unusual formations and straight dropoffs. Not a good place for the grandkids to be running around. The North Rim is much more primitive than the South and most places had no railings, just walk up and look over. The depth of the canyon is generally 1500 to 2000 feet and and it's narrowest point it's only about 1000 feet across. We could hear traffic from the other side in our campground.

From Black Canyon we went on over to Cedaredge, CO to use it as a base to explore Grand Mesa Recreational area. This picture is from the top looking west toward Grand Junction and the Colorado River Valley. It's over 10,000 feet on most parts of the mesa.

The Mesa is covered with many lakes, this was one where we decided to have our afternoon picnic. We were not impressed with the camping spots because they were packed in and crowded. Many of the more isolated places were taken over by ATM crowd .. the 4 wheelers were roaring by in the camping areas .. too bad.

From Cedaredge we went over to Redstone. This is a picture of the coke furnaces that were used in the late 1800's to coke coal. They are in the process of restoring these.

Cindy on a lake up by Marble (named for the obvious). We went up to the small town to explore and found a reasonable BBQ place that also happened to have some very cold draft beers. Not a bad life.

Beaver Lake on the road to Marble

Our camping spot at Redstone CG. Unique red cliffs on both sides.

So, from Redstone we are going to be headed to Aspen to meet up with some RV friends from Arkansas that we met at Wood Lake 4 years ago. From there we plan to work our way up to Steamboat Springs around August 7th or so.