Sunday, July 28, 2024

Starting mileage: 17625, Distance travelled: 217

We had another lazy start to the day after staying up to watch the Olympics and more National Parks documentary…only one episode left! For the first time in 4 mornings, we ate breakfast together as a family, not running up and down stairs with coffees and breakfasts back to the room to trade off shower and bathroom time. We checked out of our hotel and were on the road by 10am. We were hoping to stop in Grand Junction, CO for BOTH a board game/coffee store AND a used video game store, but apparently the entire state of Colorado shuts down on Sunday…and we thought Utah was religious! We ended up going straight through to Montrose, CO, the gateway town to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (longest NP name ever!) On the way, we ended up returning to Mars before entering Colorado. It turns out Elon Musk had already beat us, erecting a city of silver silos for a mysterious purpose.

We ate lunch at Starvin’ Arvins, a breakfast/brunch place with yummy food and enormous portions! Susan’s bread options with her spinach omelet, which was slathered in hollandaise, was a cinnamon roll. Seems innocent enough…but no! It was the size of her head and everyone had to pitch in. But then Laura and Brady’s meals arrived, three stuffed crepes, swimming in berries with sauce, plus two eggs and a mound of home fries. David got a very sensible salad, but the rest of us couldn’t finish our meals…breakfast leftovers for tomorrow. Even David’s salad came with a half cup of salad dressing…at least it was on the side. From lunch we headed straight to the Visitor’s Center, because major construction is starting tomorrow and the VC will be closed, along with most of its parking.

Brady really wanted to try getting one of a limited number of Wilderness permits that would allow us to hike down into the 1800-foot canyon to the Gunnison River below. They actually HAD permits left for Monday, but we decided it was a bit too much for us at the end of 7 days of pretty intense physical demands. It involved a 1.5-mile pretty much vertical rock slide without marked trails in both directions. With Laura still not at 100%, Susan with a bad knee and hip, and David’s worrying about his 57-year-old self making it back in a reasonable amount of time, we decided against it. After getting our passport stamps (and trying on silly bear hats), it was only 3pm, so we decided to get to the bottom of the canyon the only way we could, by driving down the East Portal Road, a 15% decline through switchbacks galore, that ended up burning our brakes!

The views were spectacular and we were able to put our toes in the Gunnison River at the bottom. Sadly, we didn’t catch Brady’s initial reaction on camera…needless to say, it was chilly.

We headed back into town and landed at an excellent KOA, with one minor exception, that wasn’t really their fault. After getting sunscreened and into our suits, some kind folks in the hot tub tipped us off to a poop in the pool, obviously made by a child with irresponsible parents. David suggested that it might just be a Baby Ruth but we weren’t risking it. Instead we wrote yesterday’s post, ate leftovers for dinner, and played some more Quixx. We had planned to take a walk into Montrose to check out the main drag and get dinner, we had an attack of the lazies and didn’t make it. Although we saw an amazing sunset from the campground, there wasn’t a great opportunity for night sky watching when Laura and Susan attempted it. Sadly, our greatest regret of the trip after visiting 6 night sky parks, we didn’t once see the night sky.