Gunnison is one of those towns you almost always pass through when headed somewhere else in Colorado. As a kid the thing I remember most about Gunnison is a store that has tons of stuffed animals (not the soft fuzzy kind). For tradition's sake Cindy and I stopped there.
Chris went into an outdoor shop to figure out where we could hike in Crested Butte. He asked for an easy to moderate hike. The girl who worked there, who also said she grew up in the area, suggested going up to Copper Lake. It would be a moderate 5 mile hike up to the lake. What she did not tell us was that this was probably the wrong time of year to hike there. The beautiful lake she mentioned was frozen and the campsites were covered in snow. The mountain was just starting to thaw so at about 11,000 feet up we also had to hike through about a mile and a half of snow and cross five creeks of pure snow runoff. Needless to say they were freezing and moving fast. As we were getting closer to the lake, there was only one other set of footprints and they were pretty old. When we got to the top we realized we are probably one of very few people who manage to see the lake the way we did.
We attempted to go over Engineers Pass to get from Lake City to Ouray. After 16 slow miles and thousands of feet of elevation gain, we had to turn back just short of the pass because the road became too rough for our Toyota Yaris. Fortunately I had the bike with me so I took it off the car and rode the 16 miles back into town. It was extremely fast and allowed me to ride through a canyon, along a river, and through a ghost town.
Chris found an old mining town that he wanted to see so we headed there for lunch. The main street has historic buildings that are nestled between sheer rock cliffs. There are many shops and restaurants, even a Creede Repertory Theater. We ate lunch at the only place on the street that has a rooftop patio. We were shocked that we were the only ones up there. It definitely provided the best view of the town.
Due to Chris's impatience to climb the dunes and the fact that the posted park warnings may have left some things out, we set off for the dunes a little unprepared. What we were not expecting was to be blasted by sand being carried across the dunes by 50 mph winds. Luckily I was wearing pants and longsleeves. Chris was not so lucky. We both agree that it was well worth it though! Seeing Sahara-like dunes set against alpine mountains was an impressive sight.
Our original plan was to camp at theo Great Sand Dunes National Park; however as we drove through the mountains all day we saw such awesome scenery we decided to go ahead and look for a camping spot early. We found some beautiful sites along the Conejos River but the wind was a little too strong so we went back to our original plan and continued on to the National Park. When we got to the park the campsite was full so we had to camp just outside of the park.
We moved North through Santa Fe. It was a nicer, more upscale city than Albuquerque. The Santa Fe architecture was prominent everywhere from small communities in the mountainside to larger shopping centers. The Plaza contained many boutiques and restaurants. We also found another very old church.
Cindy has always wanted to go to Albuquerque so we stopped there on our way north into Colorado. Route 66 took us through several cool neighborhoods eventually ending up in Old Town Albuquerque. It was pretty touristy but had some nice architecture and a very old cathedral.
As we were leaving Santa Rosa we happened upon a small band of wild Chihuahuas eating garbage from the street. This white one started doing tricks, probably hoping for a hand out.
We have left our campsite so we now feel safe to post where we were.
We decided to call it a day at this beautiful spot in central New Mexico (we will tell you our exact location tomorrow because we are both paranoid people and are afraid that some creep following our blog might terrorize us in the woods). We set up camp and made dinner on a camp stove. Now we can sit back and enjoy the beautiful scenery before calling it a night.
Just outside of Amarillo is a public art installation called Cadillac Ranch. It is basically just 10 old Cadillacs stuck it the ground, but viewing it from a distance was surprisingly beautiful.
We felt tex-mex was the order of the day when we passed through Amarillo. While searching the web for a spot that serves the famed Texas "puffy tacos" a review directed us to Aldaco's. The review turned out to be erroneous, for there was nothing puffy about these tacos. It was a cool place though, even if the food wasn't what we had hoped.
Also along Route 66 is the site of the first Phillips 66 station in Texas which began operating in the 1920s.
A stretch of I-40 in Texas parallels historic US Route 66, or "Main Street of America". We could not pass up the opportunity to drive on such a historic road. What we found were the remains of a town that was clearly once thriving and dependent on this road.
As we were driving across the plains of Oklahoma we noticed it was extremely windy. At times it was hard to keep the car on the road. Then in Weatherford we found this huge wind farm, and suddenly it all made sense.
We just crossed into Oklahoma from Arkansas. Unfortunately Arkansas did not leave us with anything significant or note-worthy to write about. Hopefully Oklahoma fares better.
