national park road trip. week 5.

As I mentioned earlier, Wendy left me. She left me all alone in this car, slowly becoming enveloped by consumerism and a healthy heap of disorganization. No, seriously though, the seat she once occupied is now full of shit.

I'll worry about that later. Right now I'm all alone on a trip into the storm. Huge, dark, ominous clouds lie ahead, and I have to drive into them to get to the next park. What is with all these nutty summer storms? Goodness gracious me.

Left Colorado Springs a little later than planned on Monday morning due to a delicious breakfast and rich conversation with my good friend Ann. She won't read this blog or see her shout out, but she is one of my lifers. As in, we will be friends for life. No matter the time that passes between our visits, her presence, her questions, her sincere attention always remain the same. She's a good one. I think I'll keep her around.

Made it to Great Sand Dunes National Park during a break in the storm.

Pitched my tent all quick style and headed on out to the dunes. The map said several times that you should quickly abandon the dunes in any sort of threatening storm, but ain't nobody got time for dat. I have one night here to see some sand people. Don't you understand?

So I wandered for about an hour. In the sand. It was windy, and painful. 

Just takin' some selfies in the sand. With the wind and small rock granulez in my eyeballz.

It began to rain again shortly after this so I climbed in my tent (well Wendy's tent rather, just so much more room for this large human in there) to weather the storm. Is that the right weather? It must be, just makes more sense that way. 

I digress.

Another break in the storm arrived and I hopped out to catch hands down the coolest sunset I've ever seen.

It was raining off in the distance and the setting sun was reflecting off the curtains of rain. Really quite magical. So I perched on this tree:

drank a beer, and sat in awe of the splendor. 

It began raining again shortly after that, so back to the tent for me. Hit the hay shortly after and woke up super early to try and get a hike in before heading to the next park. But low and behold, the storm hasn't left us yet. There were only about 4 hikes listed in the Visitor's Guide and none of them seemed particularly interesting to me (this park is a blip on the national park map-it's really just the dunes and that's it) so I figured I'd just pack up and head to the next park. Once you've seen one sand dune, you've seem 'em all right?

Off to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park:

Like my self-timed photo taken from the roof of my car? Quality photography right thurr.

So just in case I was a little miffed by the lack of hiking in the dunes, there's even less here. Right after arriving in the park I took off for a trail run, and ran the only 4 1/2 mile loop of trails they have in the entire park. Well, aside from the treacherous trails that lead into the gaping mouth of the canyon. 

I wanted to wait until sunset to go do the scenic drive, so to swallow my time, I spent some hours reading in the sun. Gettin' crispy while preparing for the rapidly approaching school year. I read the entire book Conscious Classroom Management. So that's cool.

I caught a couple nice photos as the sun was setting but nothing like I was hoping for. Bummer.

Hit the hay at sun down once again, ready to get up extra early, know why? Because I have decided to climb down into the canyon before I head over to Mesa Verde. 

I was intending on starting the hike shortly after sunrise, around 6:30 or so but I got a late start. Had everything packed up and ready to go by 7:30 so I grabbed my wilderness permit then, and headed on down into the mayhem:

I mustered all manner of billy goat status and made it to the bottom in less than an hour. It's about a mile and a half to the river, via sheer vertical drops. There is one stretch of chain to help you down, but otherwise you're on your own. My guidebook says it's only for the most determined of hikers, and determined I was, not to die. You know me though, and my 'crazy' self, of course I rock-jumped and did cartwheels all the way down, just for the thrill of it.

I took some pretty funny videos of the adventure but of course, errors abound in uploading them.

So instead you get my attempt at a self-timed cliff-jumping photo. I'll admit, I actually scared myself a bit with this one:

I climbed up and out of the canyon in an hour. Of course it was far more strenuous to climb up, but the technicality of the trek wasn't nearly as tricky going up as it was going down. When you finish the hike you have to go turn in your permit so they know you didn't fall into the abyss, never to return. As I was walking out the door of the visitor center I heard the park ranger say, "wow, that's the fastest I've ever seen anyone do it."

Boom, boom, pow.

From the black canyon I busted into Mesa Verde, about 4 hours later. 

I'm really killin' it with these self-timed photos huh?

Upon arrival I headed straight to the campground. Although the race for tent space isn't quite so cut-throat in these parks, I always try and get set up first thing so I don't have to worry about it later, when my bones are weary and ready for rest.

This campground has a whole registration process unlike any of the other parks. You have to walk into the general store and head up to the counter where they cut off your arm and leg right in front of you, only to explain the procedure as a requirement for the showers and wifi they force upon you against your will. What I'm figuratively saying here is that Mesa Verde's campsites are more expensive than any other parks. I paid $31.00. That's even more than at Yellowstone, the most populous park in the nation. They claim it's either because a) it's an ongoing archaeological site (therefore it's much cooler than the rest) or b) showers and wifi.

So I took advantage of those first world necessities and watched Workaholics while I cooked my dinner over the fire. It was pretty ridiculous.

Before dinner I went on a quick jaunt to the Point Overlook, which is a short 2 mile hike out to some pretty awesome views.

That last one is just my epic 90's grunge attire for the hiking expedition.

The next morning I did some laundry, ate some yogurt, watched some sassy teenage girls talk back to their parents about whether they needed their booty shorts washed or not, and then headed out for some ranger guided tours of these ongoing archaeological sites. 

I decided to do the Cliff Palace and the Balcony House. I'll let you know now that Cliff Palace was my favorite, mainly because Ranger Pete is my new favorite human, and because there was a very large group of obnoxious Italians on my Balcony House tour. 

Here's Pete:

And here's Cliff Palace:

Another one of the cooler things I've seen on this journey. I must admit, I was a little bothered at first that the only way to see the palace was through a ranger guided tour. Not that I don't want to learn about what it is I'm touring, that's not it at all. It's mainly because there are a lot of people out there that I just would rather not be in close proximity to. Ya feel me? The folks from Italy on my next tour were some of those people. My poor guide relentlessly asked them to wait to take pictures until we reached our stopping points, but alas, either they didn't understand, or they pretended to not understand, and therefore the rest of the tour suffered because Ranger Tamara was unable to get through all of her content within the time constraint. 

Ya see, they're pumping so many people through these tours that there is strict structure as to how long you can stay at any one point in the house. So if 15 Italians are stopping to take pictures on the ladder, and not even just solo photos, we're talking buddy pictures galore, then the rest of us don't get to learn all there is to learn about the f'in Balcony House.

Can you tell I haven't had anyone to talk to about this stuff? Lonely travel, although quite liberating, is still in fact, lonely.

Here's the Balcony House:

Oh, and did I mention all the bratty children around that refused to listen to Tamara when she asked us not to touch any of the stones. At one point, I said something to a kid who was largely unsupervised. He was trailing his hand along the entire structure and climbing up where he shouldn't have been. I get it, you're a kid, you want to climb and explore. I feel ya buddy, but there's a time and a place for that and this isn't one of them. As kindly as I could, I said, "hey buddy, I don't think we're allowed be climbing up there." He literally gave me the 'you're not my mother look' and went about his business. 

Later in the tour Tamara asked a few kids to volunteer to come practice cooking in the kitchen. She had  selected 3 kids to come stand behind these mortars and the troublemaker from earlier hopped on the fourth mortar. Tamara literally grabbed his wrist and said "no, you don't get to be a volunteer" in the sternest scariest voice and the kid ran back to his mom. I almost laughed out loud. I felt bad for him but at the same time, he needed to have some boundaries set for him. 

After the Balcony House I took a quick self-guided tour of the Spruce Tree House.

And after that I peaced out for Telluride where I stayed with my friend Genna's bestie Ava in her sick house tucked against the mountain. Telluride is a great little town…for one night. Then the tourist mayhem gets the best of you and you run away quickly without looking back.

Did catch another magical sunset though before I ran away. 

From Telluride I drove on up to Ridgway, home of my next marathon. Spent some time wandering around in Ouray, and caught a flick about marathons, Spirit of the Marathon II. Yes, I cried. Weird that a marathon movie would make me cry but it did. Let's move on.

I couch surfed with a fella named Wyndham the night before the race. Cool dude. He's gone on traveling escapades that I can only dream of doing. Mostly touring on his bike around the world, which I happen to think is one of the raddest things ever. And his name is Wyndham, so even cooler. 

Next morning woke up bright and early for marathon number 2 on this journey. Out and back course that runs from 7,000 to 7,700 feet. I was nervous about elevation at first but I conquered that troll. Finished in 4:40 and hopped right in the car to drive to Grand Junction, Colorado where I'd be picking up my brother on Sunday morning.

Grand Junction was a hoot. I stayed with a friend of a friend of a friend who turned out to be one of the coolest humans on the planet. Here's how I met him:

I work with Audrey. Audrey works with Ashley (at a different school, otherwise I would work with Ashley too, duh). Ashley is a river-rafting guide for the summer in Missoula (remember the Field of Dreams from earlier in the trip?) Ashley works with Mo. Mo is from Grand Junction and had his roommate Tim come up to visit and so Tim met Ashley. Ashley knows Tim and Mo. Mo and Ashley suggested I stay with Tim on my way to Arches National Park. 

So I did. 

While there I not only had home-brewed cherry Belgian beer:

I delighted in freshly grilled carne asada with tomatoes from the garden. Carne asada is one of my all time favorite foods, so to have it freshly prepared for me after just running a marathon, just too much joy here folks. The company was incredible. The food, to die for. The beer overfloweth. And then it was time for bed.

Sunday morning brought my brother to me!! Patric landed around 10 in the morning. I swooped him up and we immediately hit up our first park, well monument actually. We drove through the Colorado National Monument and got some fun pics before heading on to Arches.

From here we drove on over to Arches National Park where we hiked to the Delicate Arch in the horrid heat. Let's just say Patric and I both have an excessive sweating disorder. Made for some sticky discomfort on the race for tent space. Well this wasn't so much a race as a treasure hunt. There are a million campgrounds in and around Moab. You just gotta find the most magical one. Here are some photos from our first day at Arches:

And that wraps up another week!!