20030608          Open page of today’s pictures.   

June 08, 2003       Open page of today’s pictures taken by Bob & Judy.  
Sunday

Start:   Canyonlands CG, Moab UT
End:     Four Seasons Inn & Resort, Delta CO
Miles:   140
Hi Temp: 89.6
Lo Temp: 57.6

We pulled out at 8:00am or so, and went to a local carwash with high stalls. After feeding it $3 and figuring that it would take another $20 or more to finish, we left.

We took UT128 (a scenic byway up the Colorado River) upstream, joining I-70 eastbound for 40-some miles, then US-50 thru Grand Junction CO to Delta CO.  We pulled into the campground and registered. They gave us a site very close to Bob & Judy's motorhome on the Gunnison River. The town is across the river.

We drove the rig down to the site and found Bob & Judy at their car. We said our hellos for a bit. Then they invited us to go along with them for a drive.  They are watching Bob's daughter's house (and cats) while she's in California. We did that, then went for a drive up the Grand Mesa National Scenic Byway (CO65) to the summit.  The road enters Grand Mesa National Forest and goes nearly to the top of the mesa.

Grand Mesa is the largest flat-topped mesa in the world. It goes to 10,800', some 5,000' above the valley that houses Delta.  It was much cooler up there.  Bob said they'd be up there two weeks ago and found the lakes frozen over. Now the lakes are a beautiful dark blue and people are up enjoying it.

Some of Bob's family located here. He was pointing out to us various schoolhouses, houses, barns, and other structures (a creamery comes to mind) with which members of his family were associated.  It was fantastic to hear him speak of these things. He speaks well and can tell good stories.

We stopped at the top and looked in on the local visitor's center. The cash register was broken, so the person there wouldn't sell Dolores a pin. Strange. But we picked up some brochures for the coming days.

We went back down the mesa, and back to the campground.  By this time (2:00pm), it was quite warm at the lower altitude.  They invited us to their motorhome for dinner.

At 5:30, we went over there with a bottle of Virginia Chardonnay (Willowcroft).  Judy served small glasses of it, and pronounced it very good, and began cooking.  The entree was shrimp and artichokes on flat noodles and was great. There was a salad to follow, and dessert was a combination of ice cream, raspberries, and a pastry with raspberry jam in it. All very delicious and impossible for us to top. We're in a quandary over how to repay them.

We sat at table and chatted till 9:00, then said our thanks and walked 20 yards to our house. After I complete these notes, I'll finish a book and we'll turn in early.

 

20030609          Open page of pictures taken today.  

June 09, 2003
Monday

Start:   Four Seasons Inn & Resort, Delta CO
End:     Four Seasons Inn & Resort, Delta CO
Miles:   0
Hi Temp: 86.4
Lo Temp: 53.8

The weather-weasels had forecast a nice, but dry and sunny day.  It turned out a little differently, for us.

We slept in, ate breakfast, and took off for the Grand Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument.  It's a very deep canyon with very steep sides and it's very narrow. We stopped at the visitor's center to get a map, then entered and went to the first lookout point.

The first glance into the canyon is one of those that make you say something.  Maybe "Whoa!" or "Good Lord".  The water in the Gunnison River is way down there between two vertical (appearing) walls that look to be 100 feet apart. In reality, the tops of the walls may be a quarter to a half-mile apart. The depth of the canyon is up to 2,200'. The walls look "black" because so little sunlight hits the lower walls due to the steepness of the sides.

We went on to other lookout points, each with its own lesson to teach concerning the geology of the place.  Very visual lessons.

Some different wildflowers were in bloom up here at 8,800', so Dolores took pictures of them.

Then we went farther east to where the town of Cimarron was located. There's a small park there that's part of the park with some narrow-gage railroad exhibits (cattle cars and loading pens). Then, down the drive to the bottom of the Gunnison Valley, you come upon an old narrow-gage train. It's perched on the only remnant of the narrow-gage tracks across the center of Colorado, left from an era when you could take the little trains from Denver to Ogden.  In order to best preserve the train, both end spans of the bridge were removed.  Now, no one can get to it without some risk and rigging a bridge of some sort out to it.

The bridge is located on Crystal Creek, where the railroad coming west from Gunnison city left the bottom of the Canyon and came up the creek's canyon onto the plain, then over Cerros pass and on to Montrose.  The tracks here were abandoned around 1949, and all the tracks out of Gunnison were removed around 1953.

Also at the bottom of the drive is the Morrow Point Dam on the Gunnison. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison no longer has those spring runoff floods that created it.

As Dolores was taking pictures, some big raindrops fell. Then they became more frequent, so we hopped into the truck and drove back to the little visitor's center here (in a depot-like building).  We looked at the pictures and the books on the racks until the rain (and lightning/thunder by this time) stopped. Then we started back to Delta.

As we traveled west on US50, we could see more thunderstorms coming our way. We drove through rain (it felt good - we haven't had any in a couple of weeks) most of the way to Montrose. Turning north for Delta, we could immediately see Grand Mesa ahead of us - the Grand Mesa we were on yesterday. It's a tremendous hill.  Bob, later in the day, told me it has 300 lakes on it. We hadn't realized how big it is until we saw this view of it.

We went back to the trailer, found Bob & Judy had left, so we went back out for lunch and a trip to the grocery. When we came back, Bob & Judy's car was there, but it left again before we could get over there to talk with them.  We loafed until they returned.  They invited us over for wine, and we talked of many things and places.  Finally, we said we were going out and asked them for recommendations.  They said "the Divot" at the local golf course, and that they'd join us and drive. 

We had a nice dinner, still talking, there.  Judy & I had halibut with dill cream sauce and capers.  Dolores had their salmon special and Bob had chicken parmesan.  All of it was good.  We were the last ones out of the place.

As we left, we could see on a road above us, many (eight?) police cars with lights blinking.  We wondered what sort of accident happened there, but there was nothing on the later news to tell us.

We drove home, said good-nights, and returned to the trailer to handle the photos (still have work to do tomorrow) and these notes. Then good-night.


 

20030610            Open page of pictures taken today.   

June 10, 2003
Teusday

Start:   Four Seasons Inn & Resort, Delta CO
End:     Four Seasons Inn & Resort, Delta CO
Miles:   0
Hi Temp: 84.7
Lo Temp: 59.9

This was another fun day in Delta. Up late, ate breakfast in the trailer, and got on the road with the truck. We fueled up the truck and headed back up on to Grand Mesa, particularly so Dolores could shoot more flowers.

When we arrived at the visitor's center, it was cold due to the altitude (10,800').  We talked with the ranger, who pointed out where bears have been seen and where that would be most likely.  We asked about the Land's End area - all the way west on the mesa to a bluff, from which you can see for miles. He told us that would be a nice trip and that the chipmunks are out at the wall, which we didn't quite understand but took as gospel.

The drive out to Land's End is a nice gravel road. We puttered along at about 25 while looking around.  After a bit, we saw what looked sort of like a groundhog, but not quite.  We turned off the truck and took pictures of it when it came back out. After seeing a few more, we deduced they were marmots, which was confirmed later in town.

There is a trail down from the Land's End to US-50 that stretches 18 miles of switchbacks and steep grades.  As we approached Land's End, we saw a SUV coming up the last part of the trail.  We parked at Land's End about the same time.  They turned out to be a guy from Grand Junction and his brother and his brother's wife from Muncie, IN. 

We were all wandering around the end of the bluff at a stone wall for visitor safety when she let loose a cry and said something about chipmunk. Yup, there was a chipmunk standing on the wall, looking at her.  Then it ran off.  We looked around and found another one coming up onto the wall. I stuck out my hand and the thing ran up to it and looked at it closely, then ran away. Then I saw some sunflower seed hulls.  Somebody's been feeding the darn things.

We went back on the road (no bears) and left the mesa. We stopped in Cedaredge for sandwiches (good) and then went out past Bob's daughter's place to a reservoir they'd mentioned they use for birding.  Sure enough, there were ducks of all sorts and a few of a variety I hadn't seen before. 

We came back to Delta and went to the reconstructed Fort Uncompaghre, an early fur-trading post out here at the confluence of the Gunnison and the Ouray rivers.  It looked interesting, but we didn't have time to do the whole thing.

Then we went into downtown Delta and got brochures on the interesting sights in Delta from the Chamber of Commerce.  We wandered around downtown looking at the murals on the building walls (a bunch of them, and of good quality), the sculptures on the corners by local artists (some good), and the building fronts. One of them was the Egyptian Theatre, which had all sorts of arabian themes painted on it. It's still in use.

A small rainstorm came along, one of those with big drops a foot apart.  We went from building to building under the awnings until it went away (about ten minutes). We hopped into a liquor store and bought wine for tonight (we're entertaining Bob & Judy for dinner). Then into the hardware store, where we found steak knives on sale and bought them. On to the grocery for things, then back to the trailer.

I did the photo duty to have that out of the way, then made up salad and a cheese & crackers tray. Dolores prepared the steak for grilling and the potatoes for micro-waving. Then we took the cheese, crackers, and wine to their picnic table (right on the shore of the Gunnison). We had a Chardonnay from Santa Fe Winery and a Cabernet from Haywood (CA).  After we'd chatted for a while, I came back to the trailer for the grill and set it up on the truck's tailgate. Bob helped carry things. Dolores nuked the potatoes while I grilled the steaks.  Then we ate and chatted over that.  I brought out the chocolate cream pie for dessert (Judy took some of her own bruschetti, saying that she doesn't like chocolate) and we did that with some more wine.

Finally we agreed it was time to call it an evening and dragged everything back to our trailer. We'll say good-bye in the morning and go on to Price or someplace like that, enroute to Salt Lake City. It's too far to try to go all the way to SLC in one day.

The stop here has been worth the detour. We've had a great deal of fun here with Bob & Judy.  Delta is a nice place, but too dry for us to consider living here.  If we're in the area again, though, we know where to go and what to see.