Travels: Castle Rock, CO to Grand Junction, CO – 335 miles (4713 total miles) Accommodations: Colorado National Monument – no services
Today was a very interesting and segmented day, so it will be written in “parts”:
Part I
We woke up to another rainy day – supposedly this is a rarity in this area – and headed off to meet Jenny and Tim for breakfast in Castle Pines. It was so nice to see family. Jenny and I talk and spend a lot of time together, so I have missed her a lot. It was a great time catching up and a yummy breakfast. We drove with them up to Daniel’s Park and saw nothing but cloud cover – solid white! Quite different from when we were there. Then, we stopped by to say good-bye to Carlie and Sean and the kids. We had such a wonderful time visiting with them, they spoiled us rotten – fun outings, great cooking (Carlie!!), cozy home to hang out in, pool, museum, going out… Thanks you guys for putting much of your life on hold to hang out over the week and a half!! And boy were my kids sad to leave them. The five of our kids got along so well together! It was fun to see them interact and sad to see them say good-bye.
Marin: “The trailer is hooked up behind us.” {Such sentence development – remember she is 2}
Part II
After goodbyes, we headed back to Jellystone to pack up and head out. The rain seemed to settle down which was a blessing since we were both worried about the weather predictions for this leg of our trip (including snow and ice!). We packed up, cleaned up, and hooked up the trailer. All cozy in the truck we headed N on I-25 and towards the 70 and west.
This drive was beautiful, driving through the ski resort area of Colorado. Beautiful mountains, snow still out, pine trees, rock, and it snowed on us! We stopped in Breckenridge to look around. We walked up and down their main street, ate some delicious crepes at a little crepe shack, and it snowed on us again!! We had a lot of fun playing around the town. Around 5:30, we got back on the road not quite sure where we were going to spend the night.
The drive was absolutely gorgeous! I highly recommend taking a trip that leads you down the 70 at some point! Amazing landscape with the high Rocky Mountains jutting up all around you, aspens and pines galore, snow, green grasses, rivers… The landscape changed past Vail somewhat – different trees and such. We drove through Glenwood Canyon which we couldn’t believe, over the longest bridge, through the longest tunnel, continuing on the longest bridge as we drove along the Colorado River. We stopped to take pictures and were just in awe of God’s amazing creation and the way man had constructed a road right through it.
We finally figured out Walmart in Grand Junction wouldn’t work (city ordinance) and couldn’t find anything great and cheap, so we ended up going to Colorado National Monument ($10 a night, no hook-ups). We headed through the gates and up the dark hill around 11pm.
Part III
Let us all note that scenic drives are wonderful and also often include windy roads and steep drop-offs. So, unknowingly we headed out on a “scenic drive” in the pitch black night on the way to our campsite. Our directions to the campsite turned out to be directions to the park entrance, and we were rather disheartened when we saw it was another 19 miles to the campground.
We wound up the 20 mph switch backs, through tunnels (driving in the center as the trailer was too tall for our lane), and next to an edge diving literally hundreds of feet into a black abyss. Maybe a bit dramatic BUT let’s remember IT IS LATE, WE ARE TIRED, WE HAVE NO CLUE WHERE WE ARE GOING and SCENIC DRIVES AT NIGHT ARE SCARY! Finally, over an hour later (19 miles = 1 hour) we pulled into the very nice and quiet campground and found a spot. Ahhh, now we can relax and go to sleep…
Part IV
It was just before midnight when I took the kids into the trailer as Dave set us up. I tucked them into bed, and “OH MY GOSH!” saw a mouse run past me (yes, inside the trailer!). Dave quickly responded to me yell, “Dave, mouse!” and we started moving stuff around to get rid of the mouse and what did we see? As Dave lifted up a basket holding his waders another mouse fell out and scurried off into the bathroom. We threw that basket out the door when we realized it was where the mice had come from! In Colorado we had put the waders under the trailer. Sure enough when Dave took a peek inside his waders there was a little nest – included in the mess of fuzz and sticks was the snake skin that Carlie had given us.
We spent the next two hours chasing one mouse out of the trailer and watching the other escape to the heater vent and not come out no matter what we tried. We duct taped the heater vents and finally went to sleep – in the morning we would get mouse traps.
Good night friends. So tired.
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June 13, 2010
Travels: Castle Rock, CO to Grand Junction, CO – 335 miles (4713 total miles)
Accommodations: Colorado National Monument – no services
Today was a very interesting and segmented day, so it will be written in “parts”:
Part I
We woke up to another rainy day – supposedly this is a rarity in this area – and headed off to meet Jenny and Tim for breakfast in Castle Pines. It was so nice to see family. Jenny and I talk and spend a lot of time together, so I have missed her a lot. It was a great time catching up and a yummy breakfast. We drove with them up to Daniel’s Park and saw nothing but cloud cover – solid white! Quite different from when we were there. Then, we stopped by to say good-bye to Carlie and Sean and the kids. We had such a wonderful time visiting with them, they spoiled us rotten – fun outings, great cooking (Carlie!!), cozy home to hang out in, pool, museum, going out… Thanks you guys for putting much of your life on hold to hang out over the week and a half!! And boy were my kids sad to leave them. The five of our kids got along so well together! It was fun to see them interact and sad to see them say good-bye.
Marin: “The trailer is hooked up behind us.” {Such sentence development – remember she is 2}
Part II
After goodbyes, we headed back to Jellystone to pack up and head out. The rain seemed to settle down which was a blessing since we were both worried about the weather predictions for this leg of our trip (including snow and ice!). We packed up, cleaned up, and hooked up the trailer. All cozy in the truck we headed N on I-25 and towards the 70 and west.
We finally figured out Walmart in Grand Junction wouldn’t work (city ordinance) and couldn’t find anything great and cheap, so we ended up going to Colorado National Monument ($10 a night, no hook-ups). We headed through the gates and up the dark hill around 11pm.
Part III
We wound up the 20 mph switch backs, through tunnels (driving in the center as the trailer was too tall for our lane), and next to an edge diving literally hundreds of feet into a black abyss. Maybe a bit dramatic BUT let’s remember IT IS LATE, WE ARE TIRED, WE HAVE NO CLUE WHERE WE ARE GOING and SCENIC DRIVES AT NIGHT ARE SCARY! Finally, over an hour later (19 miles = 1 hour) we pulled into the very nice and quiet campground and found a spot. Ahhh, now we can relax and go to sleep…
Part IV
It was just before midnight when I took the kids into the trailer as Dave set us up. I tucked them into bed, and “OH MY GOSH!” saw a mouse run past me (yes, inside the trailer!). Dave quickly responded to me yell, “Dave, mouse!” and we started moving stuff around to get rid of the mouse and what did we see? As Dave lifted up a basket holding his waders another mouse fell out and scurried off into the bathroom. We threw that basket out the door when we realized it was where the mice had come from! In Colorado we had put the waders under the trailer. Sure enough when Dave took a peek inside his waders there was a little nest – included in the mess of fuzz and sticks was the snake skin that Carlie had given us.
We spent the next two hours chasing one mouse out of the trailer and watching the other escape to the heater vent and not come out no matter what we tried. We duct taped the heater vents and finally went to sleep – in the morning we would get mouse traps.
Good night friends. So tired.