COLORADO TRIP - 2001

8/21/01 (Tuesday) - Great Basin National Park to Colorado National Monument

Today we had a long drive, all the way across the state of Utah.  We left Great Basin NP at 6:30 am and soon thereafter lost an hour when we crossed into Utah.  We had some beautiful scenery along the way and traffic was generally very light.  We pulled out at all the viewpoints along the way.  Here are some photos taken enroute:

Monument rock

Grand view - note rain storm in background

Yoshiko is taking in the view

We arrived at Fuita, CO at about 4 pm.  Stayed and a beautiful new State Park campground on the edge of the Colorado River.  Just across the river was Colorado National Monument.  We just parked the trailer and left immediately to the National Monument.  Took us about 2 hours to drive the loop road and return back to camp.  This included a stop at the visitor center and at several of the viewpoints along the way.  While the views were quite striking the photo opportunities were poor due to a rather heavy overcast.

 
Balanced rock in Colorado National Monument

Click Here for more pictures of
Colorado National Monument

When we returned to camp we were relaxing outside and it was quite pleasant.  We could see a thunderstorm building to the east of us and another to the west of us. It was great fun to see the many lightening bolts to the east and to hear thethunder.  But, alas, the storm in the west caught up to us and now we were in one of our own.  There went my plans to grill my steak outdoors.  We enjoyed the storm; we don't have them like that where we live in California.

 
Our campsite at the new state park campground on the Colorado River

Storm clouds are brewing in the west.

A thunderstorm was going strong in the east.

We prepared dinner in the trailer and enjoyed it while we watched a PBS  TV program on domestic cats.  The dinner was delicious.  We had a long, hot shower and washed our hair.  I then crashed on top of the bed where I stayed like a stone for the next 4.5 hours.  When I awoke at about 2 or 2:30 am there was another strong shower just reaching us.  I decided to get under the covers rather than staying out on top of them. tomato salad.