Our destination, however, had already changed. James' buddy Tom (from Cordova) is living in Grand Junction, CO - just another 80 or so miles down I-70 past the turn-off to Moab. And Tom bribed us to come. Said we could stay at his house. Said he'd give us gas money for the drive back to SLC. Said we'd got mountain biking. Said he'd feed us salmon.
We rolled into Grand Junction just before midnight on Friday night. Tom woke James up at 4-ish (a.m. !!!) and they went out to Tom's job site - an hour or so away. Tom works for Halliburton and spent the weekend telling James about the company, about the work, about the perks and about the drawbacks. Just in case James might be interested in a job in natural gas mining.
They got home again before I was awake and caught a couple hours of sleep. Then we went exploring! Mountain biking was cancelled by some early morning rain & threatening clouds, so we hopped into Tom's truck and headed toward Aspen!
We ended up at Maroon Lake at the edge of the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness. The snowy peaks in the background are the North and South Maroon Bells Peaks - both 14,000+ footers with SNOW! And it tried to snow a bit while we were there, so we didn't do any hiking.
More mountains near Maroon Lake.
Tom looking for trout.
James & Tom looking at trout
We got back to Grand Junction pretty late, watched Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen, and slept in on Sunday morning. Tom got called back into work, so James & I headed back toward Utah and Arches National Park.
On the way, we saw a sign for the Colorado National Monument and followed it into the hills just to the south of I-70 and just barely outside Grand Junction. It was a 23-mile drive through a plateau-and-canyon landscape.
Independence Monument - apparently you can climb (rock climbing - not hiking) to the top of the monument on the 4th of July - wild!
"Walking" the railing at Independence Monument overlook:
Cold Shivers Point - I LOVE the name of this view point!
Jessi
Elevation Bench Mark
James
We got to Moab right at dusk and ate dinner at a Schezwan restaurant. The one campground in Arches National Park was full, so we found a campground along the Colorado River for $12. Pretty site, even in the dark, with plenty of trees to drop their leaves on the tent with the howling wind. The wind also drowned out any highway noise and the river was very quiet. Very dark out there - with lots and lots of stars!