By the time I got back to Colorado, I didn’t have too much time to rest. A few days to get some things together before Erika arrived in Denver. The plan was to take a bit of a camping trip, so I bought a grill and some other camping goodies and loaded up the car.
Story time. I first met Erika in Spain. An Irish Pub in Madrid of all places. It was my last night in there and I was just chatting up everyone. We spoke for a little while and exchanged numbers. I just kept texting her. She thought I was a bit strange because it seemed there was very little chance of us seeing each other again.
But the next year I decided to visit Peru and Erika decided to join me for part of my trip. Admittedly it didn’t work out that great. We were forcing things. It’s not easy travelling with someone you don’t know all that well. But it ended on a good note between us and I learned a lot about myself from that experience.
We’ve continued to stay in contact since then and the opportunity to see each other again arose. Erika has a sister that lives in Wisconsin and she was coming to visit her for a few months. We decided that Erika would come to Colorado and we would do a bit of exploring together.
The original plan was to hang out around Denver for a day or two and then head into the mountains. But it was going to be raining and snowing in that part of the state when she arrived. So I pulled an audible and decided to make the drive to Grand Junction and then work our way back towards Denver instead.
The drive itself was pretty tough – about six hours because there was a ton of traffic right by Breckenridge. The tunnel was closed and we had to go over the mountain pass. It was cool because the views were great but it was very slow going.
We didn’t get in until late so we got into the RV park and made some dinner and went to bed that first night.
The next day we headed over to the Colorado National Monument. It’s a national park (I was kind of confused by the name at first) that consists of a plateau and a variety of different canyons. The monument itself is a monolith, a unique rock formation that apparently people are able to climb. Every July 4th someone climbs to the top and plants an American flag there. I thought that was pretty cool.
There is a ridge road that brings you around the edge of the park, which also happens to be the ridge of the plateau. A really beautiful drive with a great view of Grand Junction and the mountains beyond the city. We stopped and did some hikes along the way. too The park itself was very well planned and we had a really good time!
Not much happening after that. We stopped in town for a bit and then went back to the RV Park and relaxed for the day. Our plan was to leave Grand Junction and start heading west the next morning.