(Moth Mystery Solved–Hopefully! We gave it some thought and figured out the moths might have come from the pineapple sprouts that I brought inside the bus the last 3 nights due to the colder evening temps. We had 4 or 5 more moths this morning, but we’ll see if any appear tonight. Meanwhile, the plants stay outside.) We only had 70 miles to go today, so we took our time getting ready to leave. Auggie got his walk, and then Bob and I took a walk across the Little River via the foot bridge.
We walked along the path on this small peninsula to where the Little River joins the Colorado River.
If you were floating on the Colorado River, it would definitely sweep you away in a hurry. It flows very fast.
Bob spotted a couple of large fish in the river, but we couldn’t tell what they were. This fisherman ducked into the Little River after floating down the Colorado River. He was doing some fly fishing with his wife at the oars.
We walked on the path in the other direction to check out a suspension bridge that we saw, but it was old, dilapitated, and unusable, so we walked back across the river.
We went to see if anyone was swimming in the pool, but it wasn’t open until 10 AM. It sure looked inviting!
Back at the bus, we called the next campground and they said our site was available early, so we could come on in. With a few minor things left to do, we pulled out of the campground at 10:40 and drove across the campground entrance to the Golden Gate Truck Stop. It was convenient and diesel was cheap there, so we took the opportunity to fill up. We hooked up the Jeep in the parking lot and were on the road at 11:00. We took I-70 through the mountains and the gorge formed by the Colorado River.
We were surrounded by beautiful buttes, mesas, and plateaus.
I-70 paralleled the Colorado River through the gorge, The highway crisscrossed the river 8 times as it carved its way through the canyon.
This was an amazing drive on I-70. There was one stunning view after another.
The road had to be cut through this butte.
We noticed that train tunnel in the butte first.
Coming around the bend, we saw the tunnel for us.
We passed a dam on the river and many areas of rapids.
Once we got through the Colorado River gorge, the view opened up wide to expose the valley below.
This short drive on I-70 from Glenwood Springs to Grand Junction is a scenic highway. It is one of the most awesome drives we’ve been on that happens to be an Interstate highway. It was absolutely gorgeous! I hope the pictures showed you.
This butte formed a wall along the highway as we traveled around the southern part of Grand Junction.
This area of Colorado is known for growing fruit and has quite a few wineries in the area. Lots of irrigation is needed.
Much of the area around Grand Junction is dry and barren. It looked very desolate as we approached the city.
Our campground, Grand Junction KOA, was located on the southwest side of Grand Junction.
We arrived at 12:30 and checked in.
Our campsite was #C3, one of the best ones in the campground we think. It has a nice piece of grass for Auggie and two large trees for shade. We’re going to need that shade the next couple of days with temps reaching into the high 90’s. Thank goodness the humidity level is only 4%.
We got set up and needed to run a few errands, so we left to get some maps from AAA and some groceries at the nearest Walmart. Both were convenient to the campground and close to each other. There is a huge rail-yard in Grand Junction and on one of the tracks sat this long line of locomotives. There had to be 30 or 40 lined up, hooked together, end to end. We’ve never seen that many engines in one place.
Back at the campground, after all the groceries were put away, I gave Bob a haircut before dinner. Tomorrow we’ll visit the Colorado National Monument, described as having amazing views of red rock landscapes, deep canyons, and sandstone towers. We have never been there before, so we are really looking forward to our first visit tomorrow. We’ll try to get an early start to beat the heat.