23 Marvelous Miles of Splendor

We're off and running on our 23-mile trip through the Colorado National Monument.  Where do we begin all our national park journeys?  At the entrance sign, of course ... which took place before our first bighorn sheep sighting!

The Colorado National Monument highcountry rises over 2,000 feet above the Grand Valley of the Colorado River. Situated at the edge of the Uncompahgre Uplift, the park is part of the greater Colorado Plateau, which also embraces geologic wonders like the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Arches National Parks.  It is a semi-desert land of pinyon pines and Utah junipers, ravens and jays, desert bighorns and coyotes. Magnificent views from highland trails and the Rim Rock Drive stretch from the colorful sheer-walled canyons and fascinating rock sculptures to the distant Colorado River valley, purple gray Book Cliffs, and huge flat-topped mountain called Grand Mesa.

Our first stop was the Redlands Overlook which looks out over the cities of Redlands and Fruita. You can see the sprinkling of fall foliage and the Colorado River in the forefront of the photo.

Our next stop was Balanced Rock.  The best photos of this I got on our 2nd day using my phone camera!  The azure blue sky had streaks of white clouds that provided a stunning background to this cool park feature.

Over the years, it's been erosion that has shaped the landscape in this park.  From moment-to-moment the forces of nature work to weaken then wear away seemingly solid rock. Gravity is the force that will someday cause the Balanced Rock to fall. The "balance" in Balanced Rock is the equilibrium between gravity and the strength of the rocks that make up this spire. Horizontal sedimentary bedding and vertical cracks called "joints" are natural planes of weakness in these rocks.  They influence the erosional shapes seen at the Monument.  Water in the form of rain and melted snow soaks these rocks on a regular basis seeping into cracks and actually dissolving minute fractions of minerals.  Over time this process turns sandstone into sand.

There are three tunnels hewn out of the sandstone walls on the 23-mile drive through the Monument.  Two are close to the Fruita entrance and one is close to the Grand Junction entrance.  This is just one of them.

At the Historic Trail Overlook, there was lots to see including another overlook of the valley below.  The Historic Trail was used by ranchers.  They took their cattle up in the summer and down in the winter along this trail.  You can just barely see the trail below -- it is the parallel line that runs just below the ridgetop between the sandy colored stone and the red-colored stone.  And how about those unusual sandstone pyramids sculpted by wind and rain?

Here's a close-up of one of them with a closer look at that "trail."

With more amazing landscape--everywhere you look! But the best is yet to come!

Do you recognize this bush below from one of my recent botany blogs?

That's right ... it's Utah Juniper.

We stopped at the Visitor's Center before starting our journey.  Gary is really a sucker for national park t-shirts, but successfully curbed the urge ... this time anyway!  Below is a photo from the entrance wall to the Visitor's Center.  It is of John Otto who had the foresight to create the Colorado National Monument in May 24, 1911.  The dedication plaque calls him trail builder, promoter and first custodian of the Monument.

Now for more fascinating, amazing, and time-sculpted features of the park.  These photos were taken from the Canyon Rim Trail right behind the Visitor's Center and gave us our first glimpse of what was to come.

 

Here we are celebrating the end of our summer stint in Canon City at the Colorado Monoument.

Here are more photos.  I'll try not to say too much because I have so many awesome photos to share and I don't want you to get bored (ha!ha!).

 

 

The simple part of the canyon's story is that an extraordinary amount of weathering and erosion has taken place here.  Freezing and thawing, running water, and wind sculpted the steep cliffs and dramatic rock features over thousands of years.  The resulting landscape is not only a beautiful escape but also a window into the past.

Independence Monument 

Grand View Overlook

 

 

Back into the car and on to Monument Canyon Overlook.

 

 

One last stop for this blog--Coke Ovens Overview.  Early visitors to the monument thought these shapes looked like coke ovens which were used to transform coal into coke, a fuel which produces little or no gas when burned.

 

Well, that's about the half-way mark on the drive, but I think that's enough photos of the Colorado Monument for you for one day, don't you?  We'll continue our drive in my next blog.  Hope you're enjoying the journey with me!

Joshua 4:5-7

Cross again to the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Israel.  "Let this be a sign among you, so that when your children ask later, saying, 'What do these stones mean to you?' then you shall say to them, 'Because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.' So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever." 

Colorado National Monument – Bahhhhh!

We spent two half-days traversing the 23 mile winding Rim Rock Drive that runs basically north and south through this spectacular hidden gem in western slope of Colorado.  Rather than do a day 1 in the park and day 2 in the park blogs, I’m going to do the blogs following Rim Rock Drive route starting at the Fruita (or west entrance located on the northern end of the park) and ending at the Grand Junction entrance (or east entrance located at the southern end of the park).  But this first blog will focus on something very special … a highlight for sure!

Highlight of Day 1

Desert Bighorn Sheep sightings--plural!  While we were blessed with four sightings of groups of sheep, they say that a sighting is a special event because the sheep are wary of human contact—hard to believe with what we experienced.  Then take into consideration that the National Park Service estimates about 40 Desert Bighorn in the Monument and we probably saw 20 of those 40—about 50% of the total population—which is totally awesome, amazing, and unbelievable!  I got awfully close to one group and got some great photos which you will soon see.  One of the four sightings was much further away and included only four sheep running along a hillside and no photo opp.

Sighting #1 came right after we stopped at the park entrance.  The Park Ranger had just finished telling Gary to drive slowly because the bighorn can run right out onto the road when he turned and saw a ram running across the road!  We drove over to the sighting and there were 7 to 8 of the awesome bighorns—all different ages, including ewes—hanging around munching lunch in a small depression on the side of the road.  This group contained an older ram because he had quite a rack on him.  Oh, how blessed and thankful we were to have this sighting right away.

Incidentally, the whole six months we were in Canon City near the Bighorn Sheep Canyon, I had one small bighorn sighting and we were going too fast to stop and take a pic.   But all that was redeemed with the number of bighorn we saw today.

Here are some photos of Sighting #1 ...

 

Sighting #2 was after our stop at the Canyon Rim trail.  Desert Bighorn were almost extinct at one time, but were reintroduced into the Monument in 1979.  Desert Bighorns have adapted to hot, dry climates and have longer legs, lighter coats, and smaller bodies that their Rocky Mountain cousins.  They can live without water for days. Their diet of bluegrass, brome, fescue, clover phlox and cinquefoil supply a good portion of their water needs.

The head honcho ram in this group was a younger male because as you can see his horns aren’t as well developed as the ram in our first sighting. By the time a ram is 7-8 years old he can have a full curl, a spread of 30 inches, and a weight of almost 30 pounds!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sighting #3 was on our way back to Fruita and the Visitor’s Center (we turned around at Highland View because we knew we’d be coming back to the park the next day).  I believe it was the same group of bighorn as Sighting #2.  We just caught them again, crossing the road again. 

 

 

 

 

Desert Bighorn Sheep have amazing hooves! The rim is made of hard material that makes firm contact with rocks, while the spongy inner pad absorbs impact and prevents the hoof from bouncing. As more weight is applied the hoof spreads apart at the tip, adding stability. 

How awesome and exciting it was to get this last close-up glimpse of the bighorn sheep of the Colorado National Monument. 

Our second day in the park, driving from the Grand Junction entrance/exit all the way through to the Fruita entrance/exit (all 23 miles of Rim Rock Road) did not produce even one Desert Bighorn Sheep sighting!  Truly, our day 1 sightings became even more special than before.

Psalms 95:6-7

Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.  For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.

Not exactly an uneventful day :(

I drove most of the way to Fruita from Montrose and Gary liked to call part of my driving the RV rodeo!  It was a little wild every once in a while--maybe a turn or two a little faster than I should have and one pretty quick stop.  This resulted in quite a bit of noise in the RV as a number of things "shifted" around in the cupboards!  Needless to say, we were very, very careful when opening all the doors in the RV after we landed.

We decided to take a chance and see if we could stay at the state park campground, James M. Robb Colorado River State Park which is located right on ... you guessed it ... the Colorado River.

Here's the Colorado River.

We were able to get their last full hook-up site--available for only one night.  I mean, we are way off season, and that's all that was available.  We think it's because the weather is so beautiful right now and this is a vacation destination for outdoorsy people--especially mountain bikers.  They flock to this area to ride through the Monument.  Just about everyone had mountain bikes in their campsites. And they're having some big Monument Ride on November 1st.  I bet that will bring in a humongous number of bikers!

This is probably one of the nicest state campgrounds we have ever stayed in all our travels throughout the western U.S.  The sites were very roomy, had excellent cement pads for your RV, cement covered patio, full hook-ups, a lot of room between your neighbors, far enough off the road where highway noise was not an issue, and closely located to the Fruita park entrance.  Check out our site with the fabulous fall foliage.

 

Here's a bonafied bunny trail ... Nancy and Brindley, you think Puyallup has a weird street numbering system?  Get a load of this street sign?  Not only did they have alphabet streets with 1/2's and 3/4's but they also had numbered streets with 1/2's and 3/4's!  So they had signs that said 24-1/2 Road!

Now, let's get back to why our day was not uneventful.  We pulled the RV into the site and Gary decided I needed to back it up (Jeep still attached).  Well, he wanted me to back it up too much and I'm no expert in that arena so the Jeep wheels got turned too much kind of locking them into place.  So, Gary got the key to start the Jeep but it was dead, dead, dead ... as a door nail.  The battery died without any notification (how rude is that?).  I'm not going to bore you with all the details on what it took for us to unhook the Jeep from the RV but it wasn't pretty.  We had one of the campground rangers give us a jump, found a Batteries Plus store in Grand Junction, took off and went straight there to replace that old battery.

An exciting sighting happened on our way.  There it was on the side of the road ...

It has been almost a year since we've seen a Sprouts store and boy did we get excited.  We were very, very happy to have the opportunity to shop there.  You would have thought we were two kids in a candy store the way we were acting walking up and down the aisles.  They had our favorite Cowboy Burgers (burgers laced with bacon, cheddar cheese and jalapeno peppers) which we got for dinner. They had so many other things we really like; what a treat it was to shop there.

As I told you in the beginning of this blog--we love this campground, and now I'm going to show you some of the other reasons why we liked it so much.  First there were so many beautiful trees glowing in gold.

 

Second, they have two small "lakes" (well, ponds really) on the property.  This first one used to be a swimming lake but about six years ago the health department stepped in and posted a "NO SWIMMING" sign--the lake was closed due to an e-coli infestation.  They said it was because it has no source of fresh water making the water stagnant ... we think maybe it was filled with too much goose poop, too!

The second lake was a fishing pond. I caught it with this beautiful fall foliage reflection.

That evening we had a BBQ and fire.  The weather "demanded" that we do the fire!  It was a beautiful evening and we were celebrating our Sprouts discovery with Cowboy Burgers and corn-on-cob on the barbie.  Oh, did I forget to mention celebrating with beer and wine, too?

 

Tomorrow begins our Colorado National Monument adventure and we can't wait to see what beauty awaits us.

Psalms 29:7-9

The voice of the LORD hews out flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.  The voice of the LORD makes the deer to calve and strips the forests bare; and in His temple everything says, "Glory!"