Days 20 & 21(4/20 & 21)
At Reen & Brian’s . . .
Not far past the entrance to Mesa Verde NP on our way out of Cortez, the country changes from the farming valleys to hill country and soon we were following various streams and rivers through lovely tree lined canyons and upland farming valleys. Google Maps had given us a choice of three routes and we picked the eastern most. It was the right choice. We kept gaining altitude and soon the little bits of snow on the ground began to fill in the landscape. We climbed above 8800 feet and were no longer in the hills. These were the big boys – the Rocky Mountains. Though snow was everywhere, the road was dry and ice free. After surmounting one summit and beginning our descent we came upon a wondrous vista of many snow-covered peaks in the distance. Near the bottom as we swung to the northwest, we passed the turnoff to Telluride. What a beautiful drive it had been.
We came out of the mountains into wide valleys defined by great mesas. It was drier country. It is the kind of country that Reen (my sister Maureen) and Brian live in. Whitewater is a suburb of the city of Grand Junction, though both are on a smaller scale than in major metropolitan areas. Since Whitewater doesn’t have a downtown, we drove right past it and into Grand Junction looking for a late lunch. As it happened, Reen was in town and met us at a bagel shop where we got a snack to tide us over until we could enjoy the pork roast dinner she and Brian were preparing. On the way to their house, we stopped to pick up what we’d need to cook tomorrow night’s dinner. Connie and I were tired of road food and were looking forward to cooking something ourselves.
Brian was at their house and so were their four Dachshunds. We fell in love with Skippy, a still puppy like white dog with black spots that look like they were painted on by a three year old. And, he has blue eyes. Cocoa, a long-haired brown, once got into our van and it took both Connie and me to get him out. He loves to travel. The pork roast dinner lived up to its billing and after we were done, Brian insisted on going into town to Barnes and Nobel’s to look at their maps and have ice cream. We ended up buying the Western USA map because we spilled coffee on it, but then it was back to their house and a great night’s sleep.
Brian left for the gym and breakfast with his cronies before we got up. After the three of us had breakfast and hung around for a while, we rode with Reen into town where she had a short appointment. Afterward, we wandered around Grand Junction’s small downtown area. The city obviously takes pride in this older part of the town. The area is thriving with shops of every description, cafés with outdoor seating and even a brewpub. On every street corner is some piece of outdoor art. We wandered in and out of some of the stores and stayed a little longer in an antique shop. Finally though, we headed over to Brian’s dad’s house where Brian had been slaving away since he had said goodbye to his breakfast crew.
Brian’s dad had recently died and he and Maureen were dealing with clearing out his house. Brian’s dad was a world-class collector and also was reluctant to get rid of anything. What a monumental and arduous task they were involved in packing up all of this amazing stuff to take to an auction house in Denver. We saw every electronic device his dad had ever owned. We also saw a 16 mm projector complete with take-home versions of very early movies, which we thought were very cool. It was equal parts of interesting collectobelia and stuff that should have been recycled years ago. I could have spent hours looking through it – I was particularly drawn to a hand-held extending telescope like the ones used on old sailing ships.
Connie and I had maintenance tasks to do (she’d been working on the laundry since we got there yesterday) and dinner to make so we headed back with Maureen. I needed to attend to our poor bikes that had been bouncing around on the rack behind our car for 3 weeks. While I washed our bikes, pumped up the tires and oiled the chains on our bikes. I did the same for theirs. I also had to change my back inner tube. After completing a couple of other chores, I headed into the house to discover that Connie was done making the Italian Sausage soup that I said I was going to make. I didn’t have any complaints, though.
Morning came all too soon and it was time to head ‘em up and move ‘em out, though we lingered until almost noon. Brian had followed the previous day’s routine, so we didn’t get to say goodbye to him. But, once we were able to pry Cocoa out of the van and give Maureen big hugs, we were finally off to Moab.