Grand Junction

There was so much activity while in Grand Junction, I cannot begin to post enough pictures, so I will tell you and post only a few pictures. We hiked the Monument Trail in Colorado National Monument. It was about a 6 mile hike from the top down to the bottom on the canyon. We had 21 people make the hike. And we even had some excitement when one of the hikers hurt their knee and we had to call 911 and she was evac'd down the last mile or so. But other than a few blisters and some sprained muscles, she was ok. I was up ahead and decided to play a joke a few of my fellow hikers, so I climbed over the side of the slope and hung on like I was falling off. And of course someone got my picture. There was also a rock called Inscription Rock which was supposed to have some writing about 100 years old. We found the rock and climbed it, but couldn't really make out what the writing said.

Here we are on top of Inscription rock.

And here I am over the cliff. It is a long ways down to the bottom.

One day we hiked to a Mica Mine.

One day we hiked to Marble, CO, where of course they mine marble. In fact the marble for the Jefferson Memorial came from Marble, CO. Here I am with Max, lounging on a huge slab of marble.

Outside of Marble is a 4-wheel drive road to Crystal Mills. Here I am in front of the old mill. Just 1/4 mile further is the town of Crystal Mills. During the summer there are actually people to live there. They take the 4 mile 4-wheel drive road down to town every few weeks. It takes about 2-3 hours to go the 4 miles.

 We kayaked the Colorado river right through town, yet seldom saw any signs of civilization, except for some signs such as this tree house.

We kayaked both the Gunnison and the Colorado River. On the Gunnison River I took my first spill in the kayak. I hung on for almost 1/4 mile before I found a place I could manuever to the side and get out. It was cold. There were a total of 4 of us who dumped that trip at the same spot. We were going over a 2 foot waterfall. I guess I was having so much fun I forgot to pay attention to what I was doing. It turned out to be an expensive kayak trip since I lost my glasses and had buy new ones to see. I also lost some clothes and other articles which were just laying in the floor of my kayak. Lessons learned. Above is a picture of a tree house on the Colorado river.

We also biked along the Colorado River in Grand Junction.

I believe we had over 40 people attending this gathering and had lots of fun. We went to a Mexican Restaurant one evening and went dancing at the Moose Lodge on our last night.