June 20, 2003
The first part of the drive, which is labeled as a
“Scenic Byway” on our Colorado map, is up and over a mesa (flat-topped
mountain) called Grand Mesa. We are not prepared for the sweeping beauty of
this place. We enter a national forest as we start the long steep drive up the mesa,
and the scenery changes from dry and arid hills to green, lush fields with
wildflowers and then to quaking aspen groves, and finally to alpine meadows and
slopes covered with tall spruce trees and other evergreens.
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View from the top of Grand Mesa. Elevation about 11,000 feet. Note snow on top of mesa on left and large lake in middle. |
The top of the mesa
is close to 11,000 ft in elevation; since it’s flat, it has many small lakes on
top. Jack and I stop at the visitor’s center on top and walk to one lake and
see that it’s filled with trout, some feeding on the surface. I practically
have to hogtie Jack to get him to leave, reminding him that we do have a
schedule to meet today, since Kelly’s expecting us by suppertime.
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Jack wistfully watching trout rising to take bugs off surface of lake. |
There are a
few patches of snow lying around the visitor’s center, and Jack finally gets to
make a snowball!
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Snowball fight anyone? |
Grand Mesa is a magical place and we resolve to come back
here sometime in future.
A note on Colorado wildlife: the highways and roads have
plenty of signs to watch for wildlife, including deer, elk and moose, but the
largest animal we’ve seen is a mule deer, and we haven’t seen many of them. We
did see a marmot today, which is something like a groundhog, and we’ve seen
lots of small mammals like chipmunks and ground squirrels. Apparently they only
have black bear, at least in the areas that we’ve been camping, which is a
relief not to have to worry about grizzly bears. Colorado does have a large elk
population and they have reintroduced moose, which is protected as I understand
it. Would like to see an elk or moose, but doesn’t look like it’s going to
happen on this trip.
The scenery changes dramatically again as we descend the
mesa, becoming barren rocky crags. We enter yet another dramatic river canyon
in our quest for Interstate 70 to Denver. The canyon seems to go on forever,
with no signs for I-70, and we feel like we’re lost in its steep twists and
turns—at places, the tall sides seem to tilt backwards over top of us. Finally,
we come to a sign for I-70 and breathe a sigh of relief.
This section of I-70 is like none other that we’ve
experienced on an interstate drive (except that Jack drove this section once
before when he was by himself on a fishing trip, and he’s told me about it many
times). It cuts its way through some of the most beautiful and steep sections
of the Rocky Mountains. We pass through several tunnels and drive over steep
grades; at one point our eastbound section (two lanes) of I-70 is down on a
rocky ledge near a rushing river, while the westbound portion of the road is
carved out of the rocky cliff about 75 feet above us. It must have been some
job to design and build this road!
We pass by or near several famous Colorado ski resorts:
Breckenridge, Aspen, and Vail being the most notable and sizable. We skied at
Vail back in 1984, as a reward to me for completing engineering school at the
University of Maryland. The place now looks nothing like we remember it. There
are 3 or 4 exits off I-70 for Vail now—it seems to go on forever with condos
and chalets filling the valley and crawling up the slopes.
A separate little “mini-highway” for bicyclists and
hikers accompanies the interstate for many miles, through gorgeous scenery.
Colorado is extremely biker-friendly. Almost every road has its accompanying
bike trail, separated safely from the main road, but this is the fanciest one
we’ve seen!
Our TomTom GPS hasn’t been working right for about a
week—it’s getting very frustrating, so we decide to stop at a Walmart along the
way and purchase a new one. This time we buy a Garman, which has a few
different features that we’re interested in. Jack gets it set up, and it gives
us good directions for getting to our friend Kelly’s home in Lakewood, CO, on
the western outskirts of Denver.
We arrive a little after 5 pm and have a hug-filled and slightly
tearful reunion (Kelly and Carol—Jack is more stoic). We haven’t seen Kelly for
several years—she used to work with us in our book publishing in California
(she still does some book production) and she’s visited us in Oriskany and
we’ve visited her in other places. (For those Oriskany blog readers, Kelly
helped us with the printing of the original Oriskany cookbook.) She now lives
with her husband Todd in Lakewood. The three of us (Kelly, Carol, Jack) go to
dinner together, while Todd goes to his bowling team practice, taking Kelly’s
cousin Laura who’s also staying here for a bit, so the three of us can catch
up. We have a LOT to catch up on, and the conversation continues on into the
night on Kelly’s comfy back patio. A very pleasant reunion—it’s good to see
Kelly looking so well!
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Kelly at home. |
We’ve parked our RoadTrek in Kelly’s driveway and retire
there for sleeping around 11 pm.
Where we are:
 |
As you can see, we loved Colorado. I fished 7 streams (name labeled in red) and caught trout in each one. Largest trout I caught was in the Gunnison River near Almont, CO. I could have caught a trout on a dry fly in the lake on top of Grand Mesa but Carol wouldn't let me. |
Bird species count: Vermilion flycatcher, turkey vulture,
Bell’s vireo, *golden-fronted woodpecker, Say’s phoebe, northern cardinal,
greater roadrunner, house finch, common raven, *northern rough-winged swallow, *summer
tanager, *prothonotary warbler, *yellow-breasted
chat, *yellow-rumped warbler, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, cliff
swallow, Mexican jay, black-headed grosbeak, black-chinned hummingbird, Wilson’s warbler, *Scott’s
oriole, chipping sparrow, house sparrow, lesser goldfinch, black-crested
titmouse, acorn woodpecker, scrub jay, *western kingbird, white-winged dove,
*canyon towhee, *Grace’s warbler, *zone-tailed hawk, *curve-billed thrasher,
Bullock’s oriole, Gambel’s quail, great horned owl, black-throated sparrow,
*cactus wren, ladder-backed woodpecker, white-crowned sparrow, brownheaded
cowbird, Brewer’s blackbird, *pyrrhuloxia, hooded oriole, verdin, American crow,
Anna’s hummingbird, dark-eyed junco, white-throated swift, Steller’s jay,
mallard, common egret, brown pelican, western bluebird, loggerhead shrike,
Audubon’s warbler, robin, Canada goose, black-billed magpie, red-winged
blackbird, redtailed hawk, American dipper, *yellow warbler, tree swallow,
osprey, mountain bluebird, peregrine falcon, green-tailed towhee
State count: 14 [Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona,
California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado]
Odometer count:
Surber, VA: 107,435
Accommodations avg cost: 74 nts, avg $13.12/night
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