Colorado Road Trip

Hello to those of you who still follow!! Just thought I would fill you in on some of our recent excursions. This one being our July 1-11th road trip around the lovely state of Colorado. It was our intention to go on this trip not only for adventure and fun but to meet up with some of the wonderful and helpful people that we met on our cycle ride last summer. It was wonderful to see Joe and meet his family Courtney and the two little ones! What bundles of energy, I think they scared Chance in the fact that he is not use to being around little ones:) So we started off our Journey visiting Randy and Amber, some college friends from college and staying with them in a suburb of Denver. It was great to see them and fun to spend time grilling out and hot tubing/pooling it at night! Thanks so much for your hospitality and the delicious food and great company. From there it was off to Telluride to meet up with Joe and he is friends and family to celebrate the 4th in one of the best ski towns around. We had a marvelous times seeing the beautiful scenery and haing out with everyone we met! Telluride is for sure some place to visit if you are ever out in COlorado.
Second, we made our way over Dallas Divide into the quaint town of Ouray, a big 4 wheel/jeeping area in the summer and outrageous ice climbing in the winter. We met Shane who owns the Company Ride-N which offers 4 wheel rental and tours over certain passes in the area. It was a great private tour with him up Imogene pass to just pat 13,000 feet! The town was lovely to walk through and I might have had the best burger ever at a place called Maggies Kitchen, delicious!! If you are ever in the area you must stop by and eat/look for our names on the wall!!
After our great day in Ouray it was off to Gunnison and Crested Butte which is now mine and Chances favorite town ever!! I would love to live there, so if anyone has 1 million dollars and would like to buy me a house there, I would be very greatful he he he!! After wandering around Crested Butte it was off to the campsite for the night to get some rest!
In the AM we went up MOnarch Pass and took the gondola up to where the continential divide is located and took in the amazing views! Again another little place to stop on your way through the ROckies! We then headed back down the mountain to Salida and again wandered ates some grub and headed to Canon City where we would have the awesome adventure of white water rafting!!! In our lovely campsite haha not really, we played some poker to waste time as we watched the sunset over the mountains. We woke up very excited to see our friends at the White Water Adventure Outfitters (WAO)Thanks to Kathy, Tony and Dave for a great experience through the Royal Gorge!! We are going back next year so anyone wanting to go with us let us know! We did get lucky rafting, it was a beautiful day and right at the end when we got back it poured so hard that when we were driving we actually had to pull over on the side of the road...... After rafting we started towards Colorado Springs to finish our Journey. We set up camp at a nice little camp ground outside of Colorado Springs, the only bad thing is that the fire pits did not have grates and we had steak. So, smart Chance used hot dog pokers to pretty much rotisery the steaks and they turned out well!!
After a nice evening rest with perfect sleeping temp we woke up packed up and headed for some tourist attractions. We would be meeting up with Jerry Funk and his wife Gayle later in the evening. We stopped off in the little foot hills of the mountain town called Manitou Springs, again wandered around saw some cute little shops ate lunch and headed to the Manitou Cliff Dwelings to see how the Anzai and Pueblo people once lived. It was fun to tour and get to know some historical facts. After that we didn' tknow what to do so we played some mini golf hit up the bike store and REI...... More time left what to do.... Smart me, I found the free tour at the Olympic Training Center so we headed downtown. WHat a place it is crazy to see the facilities our Olympic athletes used and see their crazy crazy training habits.
Finally, time to meet up with Jerry and Gayle. they are so kind and allowed us to stay with them for the night and shared some wonderful Chinease food with them! Jerry talked with us about our next days climb of Pikes Peak. He has climed all 55 14ers otherwise known as 14.000-15,000 foot peaks in Colorado and has written a wonderful book called 14er Fan Club. So we knew he would have some much needed knowledge and wisdom for our climb! If you love the outdoors and reading you will want to get Jerrys book! Sat we got up at 5am to get ready for our Trek... I will tell you it was no easy task and I was glad when it was over. The views were worth it and I felt accomplished after! Again, thank you Jerry and Gayle for your hospitality and for celebrating our first 14er with us! Then it was time to head home for the 16 hour ride back!!
We had a great time and got to spend time with amazing people in wonderful places! Hope everyone is doing well!