Travel days, huh? If you like to ride or drive they can be interesting. Even Duncan can get into them and loves to make the most of the relatively frequent rest stops we make. On day 29 of 37, our sites have been turned toward the ultimate destination of home. It’s not that we aren’t enjoying the trip anymore because we are. It’s more that we’ve gotten tired of any kind of restaurant food (fast or slow) and what you can carry in a small cooler and cook in a small microwave is limited and pretty uninteresting. If we didn’t still harbor a little guilt about leaving Duncan in his kennel in a hotel room I suppose we would do more eating out. Oh well, here’s to another shaken, bagged salad and a muscle milk chaser.
Our drive is broken up by our stop at Colorado National Monument which is close to the Utah/Colorado border. As usual, our first stop is the Visitor Center at Saddlehorn (and the park entrance sign prior to it).
This time we were excited to see two bighorn sheep standing on a vertical wall next to the road to the visitor center and just staring at us as we passed them. Of course, we weren’t prepared to take pictures and by the time we got prepared and turned around, they would have been gone so these two are just etched into our memories.
Colorado National Monument was established on May 24, 1911, and the person credited with first exploring the park, John Otto, was hired as the first park ranger for a salary of one dollar per month. This confirms to me that exploring, maintaining, and improving our park systems was and is largely done as an act of love for the earth and/or the park systems themselves.
One of the famous rock formations in the park is Independence Monument.
Monument Canyon is a fabulous example of American West landscapes and preserves beautiful sheer red rock walls. We hiked the Canyon Rim Trail overlooking Monument Canyon.
The rest of today’s drive is pretty interesting because it’s the highest and most mountainous drive we’ve been on (either of us, ever) and goes through Vail Pass, which is 10,662 feet above sea level and close to Boreas Pass (11,493). There is still snow on this route, although none on the road, and carrying chains (or ATD) if you’re a commercial vehicle is required until May 31st according to Colorado’s chain law. The pass is beautiful, even though we are both tired of winter and the incredibly long and cool spring we have experienced this year. If you are a skier I now understand the desire to visit Vail and Breckenridge at least once in your lifetime and I recommend it!
We finally made it to Denver and are checked into our downtown located hotel, Hyatt Place Denver/Downtown. It’s in the heart of downtown and within walking distance to lots of grassy spots for Duncan. Tomorrow is a rest day for me and Dan will head to Rocky Mountain National Park. Will he see snow or not? What do you think?
