Our second full day in Grand Junction we took a morning motorcycle ride up into the Colorado National Monument which was only about a twenty minute drive from our campground.
The monument is a big escarpment that overlooks the wide valley that contains the Colorado River and all the towns, farms and vineyards in the area. There were lots of switchbacks on the road to climb up to the top but the road surface was well looked after and we meandered along the edge of the cliff at the speed limit of 25 mph.
It was a lovely ride, cool enough to be comfortable in all our gear. We stopped a few times to take photos of the great views.
Here we are back at the KOA campsite with all our toys and John firing up the BBQ (below). You can see where we store our mountain bikes - they lock to a rack on the hitch kingpin at the front of the RV. We store the motorcycles in the side-loading garage to the rear of the RV.
We hauled our laundry over to the KOA Laundromat where I settled in for the afternoon and had an unexpectedly wonderful time. It was one of the nicest laundry facilities I had used on our trip, with eight front loading washers and commercial driers. With five washing machines filled, I was thinking of settling down with a good book when another camper came in to do her wash. I struck up a conversation with her and we ended up yacking for a couple of hours while our clothes got clean. Her name was Mary and she and her husband Bob are full time RVers. They sold their house over a year ago and travel around in a nice diesel pusher (bus) with a small car and two bicycles in tow.
Mary said she had been leery of getting rid of most of her possessions, moving away from her kids and grandkids and living on the road all year but very quickly adapted to their new way of life. When they sold their house they bought an old Pace Arrow RV and enjoyed it so well they traded up to a newer (2005) coach that had more modern conveniences. Mary does a lot of handcrafts to pass the time, such as crochet and tatting. When I told her about me being a watercolour painter she said she had done some of that too. It was so great to make a friend.
Our campground was next door to the local fairgrounds, so we walked over there in the evening to take in a Gun Show. I found it interesting as there were quite a few antique and collectible guns there, as well as turquoise and silver jewellery and a lady selling homemade jams and sauces. She let me know there was another Farmers Market on Sundays at a nearby town so we made a note to go there.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:41 pm Didn’t they write a sound about the parents taking off in an RV leaving everyone behind?