Kearney Gulch

Colorado-bound today. We logged about 540'ish miles and knocked it out in about 9 hours. We started in the High Plains, crossed through the eastern slope of the Rockies, through Glenwood Canyon along the Colorado River, through the mesas of western Colorado and finally arrived at our destination for the next week, Ridgway State Park in the foothills of the San Juan Mountain range in Western Colorado.

As it turns out, I am not the most confident steep-grade mountain driver. (This does not surprise me.) I drove from just before Denver and made it to Idaho Springs and happily handed the keys back to Nate with my sweaty, white-knuckled palms that I had to peel off the steering wheel. I let him handle the rest of the drive until we were through Glenwood Canyon. I forgot how long and how gobsmackingly gorgeous Glenwood Canyon is.

This trip is first time I've made it beyond Glenwood Springs and into Colorado's Mesa country. It's really stunning and has me VERY excited for the Utah segment of our trip. We rolled into Ridgway State Park around 4p and it was all sorts of windy. We found our site, dropped off the camper and promptly drove into town for pizza. Once we staved off the hanger, we headed back, set up the camper and explored the Sunset Trail for our first really good view of what the area has to offer. The sky was perfectly clear and the wind died down dramatically. The nearly full moon had already risen just as the sun was setting on the opposite horizon and we had Mt. Sneffles and the rest of the range in the background.

It was a very good start to our 12 night stay here.Read more