Blogs from Colorado, United States, North America - page 14

Dianne had rearranged our schedule so we wouldn’t be arriving at Mesa Verde on the U.S. Memorial Day weekend. A good plan. The National Park campground was listed as First-Come, First-Served. We got there early but when Dianne asked for 4 nights, she was told we could have Thursday and Friday but Saturday and Sunday were booked solid. Huh? What about First-Come, First-Served? It appears you still have to have a reservation but the reserved sites are handed out First-Come, First-Served. First time we have seen that. The woman at the desk did provide us with a reference to a commercial campground just outside the park that was actually quite nice. More about that later. Mesa Verde National Park One thing I found out about Mesa Verde after we were well into this trip is that ... read more

We have visited the vast majority of American national parks; from Acadia NP in Maine to the National Park of American Samoa (where park rangers wear lava lava skirts), and from the Virgin Islands NP to Denali NP in Alaska; but we had never visited the Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP here in our own state of Colorado. One reason is that this park has never been on our way to other parks, as we always took the northern route across Colorado to Arches and Canyonlands NPs in Utah, or the southern route to the Great Sand Dunes and Mesa Verde NPs. Secondly, the drive to Gunnison is at the furthest extent for a day trip...215 miles or four hours drive from our home and the same distance back; making for a long day. But ... read more

As I write this on January 30th I have to say winters in Colorado are not so bad. Although from what I hear this has not been a typical winter for Colorado. It has been much more tolerable than a Minnesota winter. We started out with November's average temperature being in the 50's and 60's and even some 70's with an average around 50. December was a little cooler than November with the coldest being around Christmas when it got down to 20's and 30's. Of course that's when we flew the kids down for a visit. I was really hoping they could have experienced the warmer Colorado winter. They did get a little on the last day. January started out pretty cold in the 20's and 30's with not much snowfall (except for in the ... read more

The second week of March, 2017, my cousin Mark Sawicki flew down from Toronto to go skiing with me in Colorado. We decided to go to Snowmass because neither of us had skiied there before and I was getting a little bored with skiing the same places in Summit County. I found a rental condo on Homeaway.com website in Carbondale that was about 30 minutes from Snowmass. Purchasing a lift ticket for 2 days set us back over $300. Discounts are hard to find at the last minute so plan ahead. Snow conditions were great and so was the weather. We thoroughly enjoyed exploring this huge mountain with a variety of terrain. We even got some great views of the Maroon Bells from the top of one of the lifts. Restaurants in Carbondale were a short ... read more

While planning my trip from Vernal UT to Grand Junction CO for a two-night stop to visit friends, I had decided to take US 40 east to Dinosaur CO, CO 64 south to Rangely CO and then CO 139 south to I-70; however, conversation with a couple of locals the day before my departure sabotaged that plan. I was told that portions of the road were unsuitable for pulling a trailer and that it would be just as quick to head west and then south on US 191 all the way to I-70. According to Google Maps, the westerly route is 2 hours and 130 miles longer, but I decided “better safe than sorry.” I don’t know if the information was accurate or if they were just having some cowboy fun, but, then again, I don’t ... read more