When we started sketching out our summer and fall on the road, we had a few anchor events to plan around, and our first was at the end of August in Colorado. We had tickets to see our favorite band, Murder By Death, play at The Stanley Hotel! While they usually host this show in The Stanley ballroom, a pivot was made this year and the show was outside on the lawn, the first time for an outdoor show at The Stanley in its 117 year history. And what a spot for a concert! Overlooking the majestic Rockies as the sun set over Estes Park, it seemed like the music was extra delightful, amplified by the gorgeous setting. And MBD even played our two favorite songs; a spectacular closing to the first leg of our trip.
This was the first spot on our trip where we had to wrestle with what to do with Reese & Winston, and we lucked out with an adorable pet-friendly cabin at the Tiny Town Cabins. We were able to check in early the day of our concert, and give them time to get settled and used to the place. Due to COVID and our small bus space, me and the dogs have gotten pretty co-dependent, so this was going to be a difficult but necessary night apart. Thankfully the music and the surroundings were distracting, and when we got back to our cozy cabin, the boys had made themselves at home and were comfortably hogging the bed. A successful first night apart!
We spent our next two days in Estes Park relaxing in our tiny cabin, although after a 90 square foot school bus, we were just excited to have a table and a bigger kitchen. It was a really lovely and cozy space to rest up for a bit, and enjoy some cable TV. Downtown Estes Park was also an adorable place to spend a chill afternoon exploring. It’s a pretty touristy town, with a lot of souvenir shops and taffy stores (why are they always in tourist spaces?!). The highlight of our stroll was the Riverwalk, where we soaked up the evening sun with the babbling river sounds and even found an adorable “5 Senses” garden that encouraged you to touch and smell and listen to the plants! We were both quite charmed by Estes Park, and even though we simply had to watch The Shining, felt the town was certainly more pleasant than it was spooky.
It was hard to leave our adorable cabin and the stunning natural beauty of this town nestled in the Rockies, but we had some bus issues that needed our attention. Even though we had gotten new front tires in the spring, our tires were completely worn down. We figured an alignment was the culprit, so we headed to Fort Collins to deal with our tire issues and figure out how to best function while giving up our entire home for the day. We managed to get new tires but it was challenging to find a shop that could handle an alignment due to our size, wheel width, and time constraints. We called it a day, and headed to my college friend’s house for a random Colorado meetup that turned into a puppy playdate. A much needed evening after dealing with bus worries all day!
The next day we managed a morning alignment appointment at AAMCO, where they informed us that our true problem was with our wheel bearings, and since they couldn’t fix that for us immediately, they didn’t even charge us for the work. We were so wowed by their kindness and honesty - they could have still done a pointless alignment simply to charge us, but they knew that it would quickly be reset due to the wheel bearings and they didn’t want us to waste our time or money. We were so grateful to encounter such nice people during this worrying time!
One of the reasons we had such time constraints on getting our repairs is because we had timed entry passes to Rocky Mountain National Park, and if we missed them, we weren’t sure we’d be able to visit the park. While it was a bit of a bummer to find out that we couldn’t do any hiking, since dogs aren’t allowed on the trails, we were still excited to take a drive on the iconic Trail Ridge Road. This incredible drive connects Estes Park to Grand Lake and takes you on a scenic drive through the Rockies, through fields of alpine tundra that live above the treeline, and across the Continental Divide. The road reaches its peak at 12,183 ft. and offers many pull-offs and vista where you can see the Rockies growing and sprawling all around you. It was a stunning drive, and even with just a few hours at that altitude, we were feeling the effects. I guess we wouldn’t have been ready for a Colorado hike at this level anyway!
We finished our traverse through the Rockies and headed to a Harvest Host outside Boulder. The next morning, we headed out to explore the legendary Red Rocks, which surprisingly allowed pets! We hadn’t planned any hiking here, just wanted to see what all the hype was about, but I think the true gravitas happens when the music is playing. So we headed to downtown Boulder to explore, but found it shockingly pet unfriendly. No pets were allowed on the Pearl Street Mall, which was the center of things to do in Boulder, so we decided to skip the city and go for a drive by of the Flatirons and to head to Avery Brewing for lunch. Avery Brewing proved to be a delicious stop - we each sampled a few beers and each was as tasty as the last, and we topped it all off with an insanely good plate of jackfruit nachos. As vegetarians, we’re both always delighted with restaurants that have a few thoughtful veggie options, and these nachos totally hit the spot.
After our lunch, we figured it was time to get out of the Front Range cities and head south to explore some more of the state. We headed toward Colorado Springs for some dispersed camping, and ended up on a stunning section of Route 67 that took us along a beautiful river and showed off some mountain peaks that glowed warmly in the sunset. Colorado already had offered up some beautiful drives, and we had even more ahead of us.
The next morning we headed to Garden of the Gods, for an absolutely stunning walk amongst the gorgeous red sandstone rocks. This was such a delightful stop, pet-friendly and free admission, with several different hiking loops. We started with the central garden trail to see the most notable collection of rocks, including our favorite, Kissing Camels. On our way out, we detoured past the Siamese Twin formation, and took the short loop up to see the rocks perfectly framing Pikes Peak in the distance. It was such a beautiful spot, we decided to return early the next day for a morning run and to enjoy some of the scenery while the crowds were tamer. This was my favorite stop in Colorado, it was a perfect place for a day of walking and hiking amongst these beautiful warm colored rocks. The formations were towering and awe-inspiring, especially as the morning sun was just stretching it's rays onto the tops of the park.
As we were looking for hiking in Colorado Springs, we also stumbled upon Red Rocks Canyon open space, a lovely local park with sprawling trails and lots to see. We originally just aimed for a short, meandering stroll to get some walking in before we hit the road, but we were enchanted by the gorgeous red rocks and views of Colorado Springs below us, so ended up taking a nice long morning hike through the canyon and through old mining grounds. It was a really nice find, and I thought it was funny how much more welcoming it felt to hiking and exploring than its twin in Denver.
From here, we started heading west through Colorado, with our next stop being Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, named for the shadows cast due to its incredible depth. While this was another park that didn't allow pets on the trails, most of the sights and overlooks fell on the South Rim Road, where pets were allowed. We decided it would be worth the trip, and it certainly was! It was a stunning drive along South Rim Road, with 12 scenic stops along the way that showcased all the stunning beauty of the canyon. At our first stop, we learned that the north and south canyon walls slope differently due to the effects of sunlight and snow run-off in the winter. At several viewpoints we could see and hear the thundering Gunnison, far below the rim. Our walks out to the overlooks were lined with juniper and piñon pines, such remarkably different forest landscapes than what we're used to on the east coast. The best overlook highlighted the gorgeous Painted Wall, which gets its name due to the striations of gneiss and pegmatite that create a colorful masterpiece on this towering cliff wall. This is also the best spot to really appreciate how deep the canyon is - this cliff wall stands at 2,250ft above the canyon floor, the tallest cliff in Colorado and taller than many man-made objects, as seen in this cool infographic provided by the National Park Service.
It was around here in our journey that we started to regularly be able to use FreeRoam to find dispersed campsites, and this was such a delight for us in our travels! As we headed west, we'd really been looking forward to exploring these incredible free federal lands for dark and quiet nights in scenic places, and Colorado certainly delivered.
But before we could fully enjoy the free dispersed camping and the bumpy roads that took us there, we needed to crack down on our wheel issues. So we headed into Grand Junction, decided to bite the bullet and get a hotel room, and drop off our beautiful home at a mechanic. We'd been struggling so much finding someone who could get the work done in a day, and since overnight wasn't an option without a back up plan, we decided to start with Plan B and get a hotel room. Well, as luck would have it, they were able to get the work done before they closed for the day! But we weren't complaining about a night in some A/C, cable TV, and our champagne to celebrate Charlotte being in tip top shape.
As we drove through Grand Junction we began to wonder about the origins of the name. Craig hazarded a guess that the city was named for the union of the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers, which I thought sounded pretty plausible. As it turned out, we were right! The "grand junction" of the two rivers had been the namesake of the city. We both love that as we travel, we're learning so much about our country and gaining so many insights about the states we travel through.
We headed out of Grand Junction to Colorado National Monument. Like Black Canyon, none of the trails allow pets, but you can see and enjoy all of the sights on a drive on Rim Rock Drive. And since Colorado was being walloped by a heat dome at this time, we did not regret giving up hiking. The drive through the park was stunning, along a deep canyon studded with pines and towering rock formations. The history of the park was also pretty interesting. In the early 1900s, "reclusive canyon dweller" John Otto became determined to turn his "backyard" into a national monument. He began carving trails and encouraging people to explore this beautiful Colorado marvel. When delegates from Grand Junction went to examine Otto's work, they returned impressed, and the town came together to petition for National Park status. When this was finally achieved in 1911, Otto was hired for $1 a month, and for the next 16 years, he continued to pay respect and reverence to this place that he adored.
Oh, and we finally saw bighorn sheep on our journey along the Rim Rock Drive!!!!! Which was a delightful end to our Colorado adventures.
We headed out to a stunning dispersed campsite, where we relaxed in the quiet, had our first on-the-road movie night, and saw the Milky Way!! And it was here that we completely fell in love with boondocking on federal lands. We squeezed in one more adorable hike in the area on the Trail Through Time, where we learned a lot about archeology and geography, and even saw some fossil evidence. But it was about this time the heat began to totally crush us, and we decided we needed to figure out a game plan that would help us escape this menacing heat dome. So we packed up our lovely and private little campsite, and began our journey further west to flee the heat.
All in all, we had an interesting time in Colorado. The unnatural heat was definitely a frustrating factor to deal with, one that we certainly hadn't prepared for. We were both also a little surprised at how difficult it was to find truly pet-friendly experiences in Colorado. For such an outdoor centric state, that was not something I expected! Also unexpected was how challenging it was to find hiking, it feels like there wasn't much available at many popular National Parks or Monuments and what was there didn't allow pets. It felt a bit to me like hiking was centered around 14ers
I was also shocked by the remarkable shift in landscape as we moved westward through the state. What started as mountainous forests and alpine landscapes, dominated by the Rockies, quickly shifted to low brush and desert landscapes as soon as we were out of Rockies territory. It overall was a much more complicated and varied state than I expected!
Comments