Colorado and Eastern Wyoming (July 6 - July 15, 2021)
“Today we are to leave this place and home and friends and start upon a long journey, even to the land of gold.” - Delia Thompson Brown, 1860
With less than four weeks left of our trip, Charley and I are moving a little faster as we head east. We’ll be spending one, two, or three nights in most locations. More driving means a little less sightseeing but we’re still managing to see some amazing things as we move along. After leaving Arizona (with the one-night stop in New Mexico) we headed to Durango, Colorado. Durango is a beautiful, historic but very touristy town. We only spent two nights there, at the Alpen Rose RV Resort, so we had to strategically plan our to-do list. Luckily, we had already done a lot of the touristy things (rafting, horseback riding) in other locations on this trip so we spent the afternoon of our arrival day simply exploring the downtown area. There are days when I’m glad we don’t have a ton of space for souvenirs or odds and ends because we could have shopped till we dropped in Durango. Instead, we stumbled on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum and took some time to explore it. The museum is housed in a railroad roundhouse, is full of wonderful local railroad and other artifacts and admission is free!
We decided to spend our one full day in the Durango area by making the 40-minute drive west to Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde is one of the less popular National Parks but will probably end up near the top of our favorite National Parks list. The amazing thing about Mesa Verde is that it’s home to several preserved cliff dwellings and “pit houses” inhabited by Ancestral Pueblo people thousands of years ago. This makes Mesa Verde a very unique National Park in that the primary attraction isn’t natural but man-made. The fact that so many cliff dwellings and pit houses are still at least partially intact is incredible and we felt privileged to be able to see them.
Since Charley is our primary driver (ok, I don’t drive at all), there are days that I’m completely unaware of where our travel route will take us. I usually ask how long our travel day will be so I know whether or not to pack a lunch but beyond that, I don’t ask for too many details. As we set out of Durango toward Grand Junction Colorado, I knew we’d be driving a section of highway known as the Million Dollar Highway and I knew that we’d cross three mountain passes. We’d been over some other impressive mountain passes (Teton Pass in Wyoming) so I wasn’t concerned…..until I saw the signs - “Mountain Passes, winding roads, steep drop-offs, narrow shoulders next 45 miles”. We didn’t have any trouble pulling the trailer up the passes thank goodness but those drop-offs, yikes! They were steep and without guardrails. I think I held my breath for about thirty miles but the scenery was absolutely incredible. I would love to drive it (ok, I would love for Charley to drive it) in my car someday.
Before we got to our campground in Grand Junction, we made a quick stop at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park just outside Montrose, Colorado. It’s another less-trafficked National Park, small but beautiful and if it hadn’t been so hot, it would have been an awesome place to hike. Nonetheless, it was a great place to eat our lunch and stretch our legs before driving the last hour into Grand Junction. We spent two nights at a KOA in Grand Junction but did absolutely nothing that’s noteworthy. It was over 100 degrees while we were there and we hadn’t expected it to be so hot. Other than driving into the downtown area, visiting the local library, and stocking up on groceries, we spent our time hunkered down in our air-conditioned camper. One of our rear brakes (I’m lost on the details) required some of Charley’s attention so, with an auto parts store a half-mile from the campground, he was able to get that fixed. *No photos of the repair because it was too hot for me to step outside the camper.
From Grand Junction, we made the six-hour, very desolate drive to Casper, Wyoming. As we drove, it was fun to see signs for Jackson Hole, the Tetons, and Yellowstone. I hadn’t thought much about the fact that we’d be so close to those locations again and I so wish we could have taken the left-hand turn and headed back! Casper turned out to be a really fun stop though. I’m sure at some point we learned in history class that as people migrated west in the 1800s, their route took them through Casper, in order to avoid the difficult mountain passes through the Rockies (ironically, the same reason we were there!). In Casper, we visited the National Historic Trails Interpretative Center where were learned more of Casper’s vital role in the Oregon, California, Mormon, and Pony Express trails. We also visited the Fort Caspar Museum (yes, the spelling is different) which in addition to trail history, houses a timeline of Casper history. Since we’d been cooped up in our camper for a while, we felt that we needed a little extra exercise while in Casper so we took advantage of their vast network of river walks and spent the better part of a day getting lots of steps in.
Last but certainly not least on our tour of Wyoming was a two-night stop at Devil’s Tower National Monument. Charley was able to score us two nights at the KOA right outside the entrance to the park and it was the perfect amount of time to adequately see and do everything that we wanted to. On the afternoon of our arrival, we drove up to the monument, stopped at the visitor’s center, and took the 1.3 mile “Monument Loop” around the base of the monument. Our second day was spent hiking up to the monument directly from our campground. We hiked a few different trails for a total of about 5 miles round trip with several stops for wildlife viewing along the way.
We officially said goodbye to Wyoming (and hello to South Dakota) on the morning of July 15. Neither Charley nor I fell in love with Colorado but Wyoming ranks amongst our favorite states to date.
