Colorado Road Trip: Colorado National Parks

I think Koestler was glad to see some other kids sitting around the campfire at the Rusted Rook smore roast. She eagerly jumped into the conversation and I was pleasantly surprised to see how much she had enjoyed the trip even running to the car to get our skulls to share. It was passed around the campfire and greatly admired I am certain :). We took our great dinner David had grilled using the nettle pesto from the Taos farmer’s market and headed to our tent. David admits he could be a Glamper.

For about an hour after dinner Koes and I lie on a blanket and watch the stars. I can’t recall ever seeing so many!

I had forgotten how cold it always gets at night in the desert and woke up around 3 to grab a few blankets out of the car and returned to toss them on everyone.

Around 7 I hear David trying to be quiet but obviously restless and beginning projects of some sort. I tell him he doesn’t have to be so quiet and he answers in a confused tone, “What time do Glampers wake up?” I slap around and see the check-in sheet - coffee and breakfast burritos aren’t served until 8:30. He commits to his cowboy coffee project and I question his commitment to being a Glamper. He also starts a fire in our cute little fireplace but I hear lots of grumbling about the “really good fire starter packet” he’s having to use.

I have WiFi finally so I upload my blog, as we don’t know when we’ll have WiFi again then we walk into the desert collecting old barbed wire. I told David I was going to start collecting it and asked if he had clippers. “You’re just gonna start clipping peoples fences Betsy? Like (quoting me) "It was just a little peace of your fence mister what’s the big deal you have like 1000s of feet!” I point at all the stuff on the ground and he produces what I need.

Koes grabs a sand board and some wax from the tipi lobby and we head to Great Dunes NP for some sand surfing. She’s always been my most eager to achieve Junior Park Ranger and I’m kinda sad she finally tells me she is too old.

We can’t believe all the other camper vans and get a photo with another crew of Road Trek buddies that borrowed from their parents.

What’s different in these photos?

A great hat just blew right over to David!

At the top of a dune I sit down to wait out the surfers. I watch them get tinier and tinier and when I look down to answer a text I look back up and can’t find them anymore. I’ve really let them down, as that was my whole excuse for not going. Really, it looks like the best way to mess up my already hurt knee.

I recall the color of their shirts and begin trying to find stunt doubles for them. I eventually spot David’s bright green shirt and watch them ascend and Koestler seems to be falling behind. The Sherpa stops and waits but they are so close to the top now. Then it occurs to me that they haven’t made a plan for one sled and two people coming down with a giant jug of water. I take lots of very tiny photos of them and am surprised when, during a really focused camera effort, I hear them say, “Did you see us?” Wrong dune entirely. Here are some photos but it isn’t anyone you or I know.

We check out of our great tent and head on back roads and scenic routes towards Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Again, I am mesmerized by how long things last here. Old wooden barns and houses are everywhere and it looks like the trend is to keep patching them up for a hundred or so years and then when it just gets too bad, move a trailer next to it and live there. Initially I think I’d just keep fixing up that cute house. We stop and explore a few and I start thinking maybe it would take a lot to make them cozy after a certain point of decline.

As we pass through the fields we notice that some are unnaturally green when compared to the native scrub. The difference of course is the intricate irrigation being provided to certain fields that are producing grasses, grains, cotton and a few other crops. We have taken a break from Grapes of Wrath and are now into the first few chapters of Restoration Agriculture, an amazingly appropriate book for what we are witnessing and which also references the Dust Bowl, a huge setting for Grapes of course.

Martinez farms and Nissea farms I write down as ones I want to investigate when I get data again. Koes can only recall being without data this long when she goes to camp for three weeks out of every summer.

David pulls over and explains how we grew up and traveled.

We also give her the map fold challenge, which she surprisingly passes with ease

We say Grace over another fun lunch at Two Rivers BBQ in South Fork and despite our uncreative gps suggestions we grab the 149 and head north following the Rio Grand once again. We head up into the mountains and in just a few minutes we’ve left fields of crops and scrub and enter into boulder filled forests. Koes loves the NC mountains where she’s camped every year since she was 7. She’s glad to be back in the mountains but I know it’s still not the same for her. Her heart is with the Smokies and of all of the things that were cancelled for my kids this year; this one really broke my heart the most.

David finds a piece of turquoise

RR tracks and minors shacks are between the Rio and us and I’m reminded of the two series I’ve been watching, Deadwood and Hell on Wheels. Gentlemen didn’t tame the west and only the railroad and old mines could tell us about it anymore. To most we are just riding through the Rio Grand National Forest. The new wagon on these trails is us and all the other vans, campers, and RV’s. Dad says he read that sales on camper vans are sky high. It appears to be truehttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-26/-covid-campers-rv-motor-home-and-travel-trailer-sales-shoot-up. Everyone is so afraid of getting sick so they travel in self-contained vehicles avoiding hotels. Yet, as we pass these tracks listening to Grapes of Wrath, the pandemic seems a bit more manageable compared to starvation, lawlessness, natural elements, and so many unknown diseases, unknown to most that had them. It helps put the fears of COVID in perspective and for that I am glad. We have not listened to the news since we left, and everyday we feel better for it. It’s a touchy subject and everyone has such a different experience and situation don’t they? And that’s all I’ll say on that because I have to mask up for a rest stop says the sign in the middle of nowhere.

The clay mine outside of Creede is a fun stop and the valley just after is filled with beautiful homes. Creede was the last silver boom town in Colorado in the 19th century. The town leapt from a population of 600 in 1889 to more than 10,000 people in December 1891. The Creede mines operated continuously from 1890 until 1985, and were served by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.

The mountains, the entire scene is breathtaking. We haven’t seen many other cars all day. The few that pile behind us we pull over for.

The closer we get to the trees, the more obvious it is that the trees are real sick. It appears they initially tried to cull the sick ones but gave up. It is not a controlled burn.

Going down the mountain into Gunnison National Forest we don’t know if it’s the Jobs discussion of their gilappi falling apart on 66 or if the sound we hear is real. David just says turn up the volume, nothing we can do now.

I initiate a rating system we can communicate with kinda like that pain scale the hospital uses. “David, on a scale from 1-10 how worried are you?” The screeching continues but he remains stubbornly at “I’m not worried at all” he won’t even play the worry game.

I see an off-road option on a paper map that would cut an hour off our trip assuming we can make it. Consulting my off road map David and I decide we couldn’t justify our decision if something went wrong - or got worse?

When we drive through Lake City 5 minutes later and saw all the atvs driving around we commit to the longer drive.

We come to a cross roads for Gunnison or Montrose we still aren’t sure and David has no shame taking the map to an unloading area for white water rafters. He’s been an outdoor guide for several operations and is confident in the fells advice. Koestler’s playlist of great Christian tunes are the perfect background for our sunset ride into Gunnison NP where we find our crew and set up camp.