Grand Mesa, Grand Junction, and Fruita Area

While still camped in Jumbo Campground on Grand Mesa, we decided to ride the atv on the Scotland Trail. Once again, the map we had didn't completely cover the area, but we managed. The wildflowers up there were beautiful! I cannot count the number of lakes we saw. Many of the lakes are used for irrigation and are drained each year; there are signs on some of them warning fishermen there are no fish in certain lakes. Parts of the trail were so rough I was afraid we would damage the oil pan or something on the atv; there were

babyheads as big as...well, a baby's head and bigger! We stopped for lunch, but we didn't stay long. The mosquitoes almost carried us away! Apparently, we didn't pick a good place to stop.

The next morning we awoke to a light rain. This confirmed we would not be riding our bikes, so we spent a lazy morning in the travel trailer. The mosquitoes were also a factor in our decision not to ride. July is probably the worst month for mosquitoes on the mesa; Jerry says they will be completely gone in August.

Artwork outside The Hot Tomato in Fruita, Colorado

The Autreys provided us with a great place to park and hook-up our travel trailer next to their house. The dogs love their grassy yard! The Autreys' patio backs up to the salt wash and has a beautiful view of the Colorado National Monument. We rode our bikes from the house to dinner at one of the local favorites, The Hot Tomato Cafe. I had a slice of  Granny's Pesto Pizza. It was delish!

John and I rode the bike trails in the North Fruita Desert, also known as 18 Road. It was hot!

The dogs found some mud to cool off after a game of fetch.

We rode the atv's from behind the Colorado Monument to Gateway Canyon.

Saturday we went for an epic ohv ride with the Autreys, Brad, Sue, Tony, and Randy. We had lunch at the Gateway Canyons resort. Brad, Sue, Tony, and Randy were in jeeps, so they took the paved road back. Since we were on atv's, we had no choice but to take the 30-something-mile trail back to where we parked the trailer. Both atv's got a little hot climbing up out of the canyon, but they were back to normal after a bit.

Monday, July 19

After sleeping in until around 9:30, I began my day with the first shower I’d had since Friday. I had so much dust in my hair from two days in Taylor Park I had to add extra shampoo. Clean at last! Of course we had to take the pups for a walk and let them frolic and swim in Sunset Lake near the Jumbo Campground.

John and I did a little exploring on the motorcycle and rode down to Cedaredge to see the sites since it was dark when we had driven through there the night before. As it turns out, there wasn’t much to see, and it was as hot as Texas just not humid. On the way back to camp, we saw a couple of elk, a deer, and a dead beaver. We spent the next couple of hours hanging out in our camp site. I took a nap, and John researched what might be wrong with the truck. We drove down to the town of Mesa, where we had dinner at the Wagon Wheel. Our mouths were watering at the thought of the chicken fried steak we were about to order. However, they were out of chicken fried steak. The waitress said it had been a really busy weekend, and their order wasn’t due to come in until the next day. We then decided to get the Humdinger Fried Chicken. But alas, our dreams were once again shot down as the waitress told us they were out of that, too. She offered us 50% off anything we wanted. We ordered the ribeye, cooked medium. When it arrived, it was somewhere between tar-tar and rare. She apologized and brought us another steak. It was a crazy night, and I felt a little sorry for her. There was a group of motorcycle riders who headed to the salad bar only to discover…wait for it…there was no more salad! We had eaten at this restaurant before, and it was really good, so I’ll give them a mulligan on this one.

On the way back to camp, we saw a couple of fox babies crossing the road. There may have been more, but we only got a good look at two of them. Nope, no photos. :-(

Sunday, July 18

Lunch at the Brick Oven in Crested Butte, CO

On motorcycles we headed up to Crested Butte for lunch. We dined at Brick Oven Pizza on the patio. I know you’re supposed to have pizza at a place called Brick Oven Pizza, but their hamburgers and sweet potato fries are great! We walked around a little and explored the street market they were having that weekend. John bought a couple of quick links for his chain at the local bike shop. This was our first time in Crested Butte, but I hope it won’t be the last. I see why our Chicago friends love to go there. On the motorcycle ride back to Taylor Park, we were caught in a bit of rain. It was a little chilly, but we survived.

Here is a video of part of our ride from Crested Butte back to Taylor Park. I didn't capture the part that includes the rainy part of our ride.

After returning from Crested Butte, we packed up camp and headed toward Grand Mesa. The drive through the Blue Mesa Reservoir area was about as eventful as the one through Monarch Pass. We stopped a couple of times to let the old truck cool off. The drive up to the top of the mesa resulted in a couple of cooling-off periods as well. John’s vacation project this year is to diagnose and treat whatever is making the truck despise climbing. We’ll be staying with the Autreys in Fruita for a few days, so hopefully he will get it figured out then. He thinks it might be the clutch fan or something. I’m glad I’m married to a man who can do anything. (Well, anything except maybe put the lid down on the toilet or put his clothes in the hamper. I guess a girl can’t have everything.)

We arrived in our camp site at Jumbo Campground in the Mesa Lakes Recreation Area around midnight. Since the campground doesn’t have water hook-ups, we had to stop at the faucet and fill our freshwater tank. By the time we got everything set up, it was probably close to 1:00 a.m. before we went to bed. I was so exhausted I decided to forego a shower for another day. I know, gross. That's just how tired I was!

Saturday, July 17

John, Sherry, Rahna, and Jerry near the Cement Creek Mine.

We had a leisurely morning. When we let the dogs out for their “nature break,” of course they slinked off to the river. Caleb caught sight of the standard poodle, Molly, who was in the next camp and decided to make a new friend. He chased the poodle back into her camp where they proceeded to stir up all kinds of dust in their camp site. I think he not only scared Molly, but Molly’s owner as well. After many apologies from me on Caleb’s behalf, I managed to get him back under control. Poor boy! He just wanted to play, but I guess he was too exuberant.

With John on top of American Flag Mountain

With Jerry as our guide, we headed out on the ohv’s to Italian Creek Road. From there we took Cement Creek to American Flag Mountain. The trails weren’t bad at all, and the views from the top of American Flag were amazing. Some happy person created rock smiley faces all along the trail. We also saw a few deer, as well as a marmot sunning on a rock. He stayed there for at least a couple of hours, because he was still on that same rock when we retraced our path back to the main road.

Marmot

While on the trail, we chatted with some guys on motorcycles who told us if we wanted to see the Maroon Bells, we could see them by traveling up a 4-5 mile trail to Taylor Pass. What he didn’t tell us was how wicked the trail up there was! At one point, the trail diverged into a rocky creek. We had to travel about ¼ mile through a rocky, flowing creek. I had my doubts as to whether or not we would make it, but we did. As we traveled onward and approached our destination, we heard gunfire. The gunfire came from a group of 20-something guys who were getting hammered and shooting skeet at Taylor Lake. They came down from either Crested Butte or Aspen and were planning on going back the way we came in. Lucky for them, Jerry told them they’d probably never make it in the vehicles they were driving, so they decided to go back the way they came. I hope they had three designated drivers.

View of part of the Maroon Bells from the Taylor Pass Trail

The Maroon Bells didn’t really look like the photos I’d seen, but Jerry said it was due to the location of our view. They are really spectacular. Rahna has some great photos on her camera; I may edit this post later to add some of her photos.

Here is John. Notice I am not on the back for this part.

On the way back down the Taylor Pass trail, we got behind some super slow atv’s who didn’t seem to want to let us pass. Maybe they thought it was a race.

For supper we just roasted hot dogs over the huge fire John and Jerry built.

Friday, July 16

We said good-bye to Heart of the Rockies Campground around 10:40 a.m. A long two hours later, we pulled into Gunnison. Now, for those of you familiar with the area, you know Salida and Gunnison are only about 60-something miles apart. Why did it take two hours, you ask? The answer is in two words: Monarch Pass. Our 1996 Ford F250 Turbo Diesel doesn’t feel the love for climbing mountain passes while pulling a travel trailer containing an atv and a motorcycle. We pulled over a couple of times to let the truck cool down and add water to the coolant reservoir.

On the way down the pass, the trailer brakes weren’t connected, so our truck brakes protested by getting really hot. Once again, we pulled over. Through what I think was divine intervention, we happened to pull over at the spot on Hwy 50 that has cold water flowing out of a pipe in the rocks. After filling countless gallon jugs with water from that pipe so John could cool off the brakes and the truck, we were once again mobile. Gunnison must have been having some big rodeo event; horse trailers were everywhere. If we would have had time, we would have stopped at the Gunnison Brewery on Main Street where Jennifer Fronterhouse’s friends are the proprietors. According to Jen, they have a very tasty summer IPA.

From Gunnison, we drove through Almont toward Taylor Park. Almont is a nice little resort town, with lots of river access and cabins to rent. We arrived in Taylor Park and set up in our camp site located between Illinois Creek and the Pie Plant town site turn-off around 2:00 p.m. There is an RV park called Colorado Dream Ranch, but we didn’t have reservations and had no problem dry camping for just a weekend. We didn’t even have water in our freshwater tank in the travel trailer, but we did have several gallon jugs and sent a text to the Autreys asking them to be sure to bring plenty of water when they came later that night.

Taylor Park is an ohv paradise. Located in Taylor Canyon near the Taylor Reservoir, there are tons of places for dispersed camping, as well as national forest campgrounds. There are countless miles of ohv trails, creeks, streams, rivers, and mountains on all sides. Our friend, Jerry Autrey has been trying to get us to visit Taylor Park for the last year or so. We only skimmed the surface of the trails there. I’m sure we’ll go back, but I think I’d like to have reservations at the private campground there with full hook-ups. It was a very dusty place!

We found a camp site that was near upper Taylor River. It was more or less sheltered from the dusty road by a large rock formation. If you don't tolerate getting dirty, then Taylor Park is not the place for you! Almost as soon as we let the dogs out for their "nature break," they headed for the river.

The Autreys arrived from Fruita/Grand Junction around 10:30 p.m. We hadn’t seen them in about a year, so we had a good time chatting for a while before hitting the rack.

Thursday, July 15

My fortune cookie at dinner the previous night said something like, “Your intuition will lead you down the right path.” My intuition told me to let John ride Monarch Crest without me; turns out, my intuition was correct once again! More on that later. I drove John and his bike to the High Valley Center in Poncha Springs in time for him to catch the 10:00 shuttle that would drop him off at Monarch Crest Trail. After signing a waiver and paying the $20 fee, John helped a guy by reinstalling his hydraulic brake pads that had fallen off. Turns out, the shop mechanic was off that day, so lucky for someone, John was there “to the rescue!”

With John off on his adventure, I headed into Salida to walk around historic downtown. Brunch for me was a yummy California Scramble at a place called “The Simmering Cup.” If you are ever in town, it’s a nice place to go and hang out; they even have free wi-fi. There are a lot of boutique-type shops with many cute clothes in downtown Salida, but I didn’t see anything I couldn’t live without. I revisited Absolute Bikes to purchase some much-needed electrolyte supplies and then headed down to the river access where the kayakers and rafters were practicing. There was a raft of what looked like boy scouts that were getting coached on rafting skills. They managed to lose a guy overboard, but quickly pulled him back into the boat. A few minutes later they managed to completely tip over the boat. It was good entertainment. (No boy scouts were harmed in the incident.)

Later in the afternoon, I retrieved John from the High Valley Center. He was whooped. I believe his exact words were, “That was a beating.” Coming from him, that is pretty bad. Of course, he was riding his Salsa Dos Niner that is hardly a full-suspension, and the trail is very rocky. About this time I was feeling pretty cocky about my decision to stay behind on this ride. The ride was about 38 miles, not all downhill-even with the shuttle. About the time the trail dumped him out on Hwy 285, John’s chain broke. Lucky for him, it was all downhill on the road, so he coasted about three or four miles back to the shop.

More Fun in Salida!

Day 3-A Day on the ATV

Tuesday morning we loaded the ATV onto the cheap little trailer and headed out for an adventure. We started at the ghost-town of St. Elmo where we unloaded our trailer. Our map only covered San Isabel National Forest, so when we crossed over into the Gunnison National Forest, we were shooting from the hip. Beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe the scenery. Tin Cup Pass is over 12,000 feet in elevation. As we started down the other side of the pass, some old dude said, “You’re about to hit the really fun part.” I was hoping by “really fun” he didn’t mean the kind of fun we had two years ago when we had our unfortunate crash where John broke his arm. As it turned out, it wasn’t bad at all. As a matter of fact, I didn’t get off the 4-wheeler for safety reasons even one time. At Mirror Lake, we turned off on an ATV trail, which is not wide enough for the jeeps we’d seen on the previous trail. We saw a forest employee who had trained his 18-week-old black Labrador Retriever to ride on the seat behind him. I wish I would have taken a picture! After passing some old mining cabins, we drove through the ghost-town of Tin Cup. There are actually people that live there—probably hermits. This led us back to Mirror Lake where we retraced our path back to St. Elmo.

For dinner we decided to try the Salida Café, which is located next door to Absolute Bikes. It was pricey, and they charged for refills on tea. The patio atmosphere was nice, but the food was just ok. Which brings me to a question: When you go to an eating establishment where you have to go to the counter to order and pay for your food, do you leave a tip? Do you tip on the service you hope to receive? I always think the tip should reflect the service you’ve already received. Just wondering.

We saw this cool dog in the Salida Wal-Mart parking lot. He loves to ride the motorcycle with his mom and doesn't even mind wearing the goggles.

Day 4-Salida Off-Road Trails on “S” Mountain

Wednesday began with breakfast at the Patio Pancake Place. You just can’t beat the price, the food is pretty good (not the scrambled eggs, however), and the staff is friendly and attentive. John spent the next few hours changing the oil in the ATV while I used my neti-pot and took a nap to ward off impending allergies. While John was outside working on the ATV, he chatted with Jim, a fellow Texan who had been in Salida about two weeks already. He gave John some tips on places to go to eat. There is a hamburger place in Poncha Springs that is run by two Thai ladies. He says they make the best hamburger, but also sell a healthy pad thai as well.

Around 3:30 we headed out to ride the town trails on “S” mountain in Salida. The trailhead is located just across the F Street bridge. We made the mistake of asking a guy where the Front Side trail was, and he sent us to the Burn Pile trail (a.k.a. Burning Arrow). This was not the easiest climb, but we made it to Front Side. From there we took Little Rattler for a bit until we decided to split up. I rode Backbone and John rode Sand Dunes. Backbone is awesome! It was like riding a roller coaster. There was a little bit of exposure, but nothing that made me get off and walk. When I reached the intersection of Backbone and Sand Dunes, I took a few pictures while waiting for John. When John arrived, we rode the remainder of the way down the mountain via Sand Dunes. Up to this point, there was a good bit of cloud cover, so I was still feeling pretty good. John asked if I wanted to ride some more, so I said, “Sure! Why not?” About the time we began climbing up Front Side, out comes the sun. It was probably about 90°, and my internal thermostat doesn’t work as well as I would like. As we climbed, we passed Duke’s grave. Duke was a dog in the late 1800’s who was owned by the owner of the hotel. Duke would greet the passengers as they got off the train, and everyone loved him. When Duke died in 1902, his owner buried him just down and to the right of the big “S” on the mountain. There is a local ale here named after him. After paying our respects to Duke, we ride Little Rattler, Backbone, then Tenderfoot. At this point, I was bonked! We descended Front Side and finished around 6:30. These trails remind me of the Telegraph trail system in Durango. If I ride them again, I’ll go early in the morning so I don’t have to deal with the heat so much. I know, I’m a wimp.

Dinner that evening on the patio of the Twisted Cork was fabulous. The patio backed up to the tree-shaded river; it was very peaceful. I had a Cosmo and a Mediterranean salad with grilled

chicken; John had the Chicken Parmesan. It was delish!