Things were rolling along fairly smoothly, with some more sightings of the frightening windmills (good luck selling birdseed in those counties – no split tailed barn swallow is coming near someone's deck again with those things patrolling the countryside), and a hint of elevation on the horizon. Traffic was pretty l
ight through western Nebraska,
Once we got into Colorado, it was a comedy of errors, Murphy's Law, and just an all-around mess. Jordan finally fell asleep about 10 minutes before we needed to stop for gas, we found the only toll road west of the Mighty Mississipp (the Old Man…), and when we finally reached Colorado Springs, our sweet shortcut on 115 turned out to be 2 hrs of construction through lanes that looked as wide as a bike path. After finally meeting up with highway 50 (one of the most scenic routes I've seen, it follows the Arkansas River as it cuts its way through the mountains), the fun started. We chugged up Monarch Pass (just over 11k elevation), and on a whim pulled into a little convenience store/scenic view area at the top of the pass. As we piled out of the RV, I heard a slight hiss from the passenger front tire. Turns out the valve core had a not so slow leak, so Kimberly ran inside to find the nearest service station while I frantically tried to stop it from losing air (it was down to 40psi from 80). Long story short, we had to white knuckle it 12 miles down the pass, hazards flashing (I turned into the person I have always loathed, lumbering down 25-35mph curves at the actual posted limit) to make it to Dotty's service station in Sargeant, CO. Here's what it looked like, guard dog and all.
It was a scene straight out of Vacation. "And I said, 'How much you got?'" Luckily, the mechanic couldn't have been more helpful, and we caught a break that we still can't believe. He didn't even have the floorjack under the Big Truck yet and the valve core blew completely out, deflating the tire in about 30 seconds. Look up Monarch Pass sometime, and imagine having a front tire blowout either climbing or descending that road. It took him under 15 minutes to replace the valve stem on the rim, and after explaining to him how we had been in Michigan a day and half ago, I asked him for the damage. "Aww, I'd say…. How 'bout 15 bucks?" I gave him 25 and got a greasy handshake out of him.
The rest was a bit of a blur, since our finely crafted itinerary had been inflated by construction, re-routes, a near breakdown, and a GPS that believed that Black Canyon of the Gunnision actually resided in Gunnison, CO. You can imagine our dismay when we got to "1.5 miles remaining" and checked Kim's phone to discover that we had over 50 more miles to go. Luckily, we had scenes like this to occupy our time.
The final 5 miles of ascent leading to the south rim of the canyon have to be seen (or driven on in an RV) to be truly appreciated. The lines are just a bit narrower than your vehicle, no shoulders, and not a hint of a guardrail anywhere. The suggestion that some of the corners could be taken at 35mph suggests that the signage was created while driving one of these. We reached the scenic turnout about 4 minutes before sunset, and Jordan couldn't even wait for shoes, she was so excited. Here's what we saw.
We made it to the visitor's center just in time to be able to see down into the canyon, and it made the whole day worthwhile. We felt like we had the entire canyon to ourselves, there were no herds, no jorts, just us – it was so quiet you could hear the river rapids echoing from the bottom of the canyon. Eerie, and mindblowing once I got down to the observatory platform.
Day 3 may or may not include a trip across Utah to Zion National Park. We'll see…
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