Phase 8

Grand Junction - Aspen - Colorado Springs - Madison

October 23 - October 30

We picked up our car in Grand Junction to begin the last leg of our cross country adventure. Because of work conflicts, this segment of our journey was only a week long. It was just six weeks earlier when we were sweltering from an above normal heat wave in Utah. On this trip, we found ourselves freezing from a below normal cold wave in Colorado.

We began our first day driving to Aspen. Along the way we stopped in Glenwood Springs, a pretty little town sitting in a narrow valley along the Colorado River. The area is home to the Hanging Lake Trail, one of the most popular hikes in the state. This trail is so popular, that you need a permit to enter the area, (only 615 are handed out a day), and the only ways to get to the trailhead are by shuttle or bicycle. We pulled into the visitor center at 11:48 to find out that the last shuttle was leaving at 12:00. We just managed to dig our hiking gear out of the car as the shuttle was getting ready to depart.

We were so happy to get a space on the shuttle. This hike was totally amazing. The trail steadily climbed through a beautiful canyon until it reached a bright turquoise lake fed by a series of waterfalls. The lake sits at 7,300 feet; so much of the top half of the hike was over light snow. We were to experience a lot of snow on this trip.

Aspen is an exceedingly pretty town surrounded on all sides by mountains. There is a lot of money in this community, and it shows. Lodging, even off season, in Aspen is extremely expensive, so we were forced to stay in Snowmass, a sprawling ski resort in the mountains above the city. Sandra was ecstatic as we got to visit Anderson Ranch Arts Center campus where among other things, you can take ceramics summer workshops. During our visit we saw memorials to favorite sons Hunter Thompson, and John Denver and hiked the Maroon Bells. This was a fairly level hike at 9,600 feet that took us past a small lake with reflections of the Maroon Bells Peaks, and we were mostly alone walking through the magical fresh snow. The day of the hike was fairly warm, so portions of the trail were very sloppy and slippery.

On the way to our next destination we hiked the Grottos, traversed Independence Pass, and stopped for lunch in Buena Vista. We also planned to visit Pikes Peak that day, but arrived shortly after the gate closed. On the Grottos trail, we saw cascading waterfalls and ice caves, and again had the fortune of having the trail almost to ourselves. At Independence Pass we took a steep narrow twisting road over the Continental Divide to an elevation of 12,100 feet. Even though it was a fairly warm day at the lower elevations, it was quite cold at the pass, so we did not linger long. In Buena Vista we found a wonderful vegetarian restaurant in the small pretty downtown packed with cool stores . Central Colorado appears to have a lot of pretty little towns.

That night we stayed in in Old Colorado City, the oldest neighborhood in Colorado Springs. This is the happening area of town, with lots of interesting restaurants and shops to visit. The day we arrived in town, the temperature was in the 60s. The next day it dropped down to the 30s, and the following day to the teens with around four inches of snow. What a bummer. We were informed that dramatic changes in temperatures like this are quite common in this part of the country. A few days after we left, the temperature bounced back to the 50s.

Because of the severe weather conditions, we had limited options of things to do. We visited a few museums, hiked through the Garden of the Gods, and explored Manitou Springs. The Garden of the Gods consists of a variety of dramatic sandstone rock formations towering as high as 300 feet, forming several lines of thin, jagged peaks poking out of the ground.

Before this trip, we never heard of Manitou Springs, nor did we have any plans to visit it. As I mentioned previously in the blog, one goal of this adventure has been to scout out possible cities in which to eventually retire. In my opinion, we have now found the perfect place. However, Sandra still needs to be convinced.

Manitou Springs is less than a ten minute drive from the outskirts of Colorado Springs, but exists in a whole different reality. This small town of 5,400, appears to have it all; 1) an attractive downtown listed as a National Historic District which is filled with funky stores without a single chain store in sight; 2) beautiful 19th century Victorian neighborhoods climbing the adjoining hillsides: 3) a vibrant art scene, 4) an eclectic population consisting of aging hippies and young hipster families; and 4) amazing nature just a few miles away.

The following day we planned to go to Denver for one night, to put Sandra on a plane, and for me to drive back to Madison. When we found out that Denver was expecting almost 30 straight hours of snow, we decided to leave the area a day early and drive straight back home. Fortunately, although we did experience some stretches of nasty weather, we managed to completely miss this storm. However, shortly after arriving back in Madison we were greeted with another one.

Our car is now sitting in our warehouse parking lot, and our travel gear is stored away in a pallet rack. I can't believe that we were able to successfully complete this adventure. From the very beginning I questioned if we would be able to do so for a variety of reasons. First, we experienced a number of personal and work related problems during the last 16 months that could have potentially derailed our plans; Second, it took so much convincing to get Sandra on board with this adventure that I was concerned that she might want to pull the plug before we finished; and third, I was concerned about our transportation, but amazingly our 2004 Rav4 made it all of the way without any serious problems. I am so happy that none of these potential obstacles stopped us. This entire adventure was an absolutely amazing experience.

Although we were able to see most of the places I dreamt of visiting, we still missed a lot of important destinations. Being that it was such a challenge to get Sandra on board with my project, this was the only adventure I conceived of doing. So I was very surprised when a month ago, Sandra expressed interest in doing an additional road trip next year. As of now, our tentative plans are for us to explore the New England and far eastern Canada regions in four phases, starting next March and ending in September.

That’s it for now. Thank you for all of the nice comments many of you have given us over the last 16 months. Hopefully, you will all be hearing from us again next April.

Cross Country Adventure Statistics

Distance Traveled – According to my odometer, we traveled 11,900 miles. To give you an idea of how far that is, if we were to drive straight from Madison to Buenos Aires to visit Sandra’s family, we would only be on the road for 11,200 miles. However, technically this could not be done because there are no roads between Yaviza Panama and Turbo Colombia.

Distance Walked – According to Sandra’s fitbit, which I do not completely trust, we walked around 700 miles. This would be the same as walking from Madison to Huntsville Alabama.

Elevation Gained – Again according to Sandra’s fitbit, we climbed around 6,000 floors which is equivalent to trekking from Mt Everest’s base camp to its peak, five times.

Number of Days Traveled – If we did this adventure in one non-stop exhausting trip, we would have been on the road for 98 days.

National Parks Visited – Sixteen

Fun Had by All– Unmeasurable