to the moon and back

while erin was here a couple weeks ago, she decided to set up an interview with a hospital out in montrose.  montrose is a smaller town out in western CO that looks truly beautiful in pictures and why not go for a big change when you are starting out in a new career.  so we did a bit of planning, got in the car and headed west.

while researching the town of montrose, we learned that it has around 19,000 people and offers a decent amount of shopping, eating, entertainment type places and has several hotels.  all in all not a bad place to be.  we found a really great hotel deal in cedaredge, which is about 30 miles from montrose and packed our bags.  as we were already going west, we decided to stop in vail on the way and do some hiking, sight-seeing type stuff since erin hadn't even been to vail in the summer.

vail was amazing.  it was a little cloudy and overcast, which also meant that it was cooler than the past few days had been.  we found a great little place to eat in vail village and took a nice walk through the shops and stuff before we rode the gondola up the mountain.  back in 2006 when we were here for spring break, we skied for a day at vail and both of us remember how steep it was in the winter so we weren't sure whether we were going to hike or just ride the gondola and walk around at the top of the mountain.

we ended up deciding to hike back down, which was a very pretty trail, but vail is just as steep in the summer as it is in the winter.  by the time we made it to the bottom my knee was quite angry.  it was a really pretty walk through several aspen groves and lots of pretty mountain meadows.  the flowers out in the mountains are so pretty.

we managed to beat the rain in vail by about 5 minutes and spent the next couple of hours on the road in the pouring rain.  driving through the mountains in a storm is actually truly beautiful, though the big trucks on the interstate get a little scary in the rain. 

going west in CO means getting off of the interstate and heading south a bit as well as west.  the drive is magnificent.  the rocks start to get this amazing red hue and the silvery aspen leaves are always pretty.  we were quite excited by the view and enjoyed the adventure of everything new around each corner.  neither of us had ever been this direction in CO, so it was very neat to do something new and different.  check out how pretty this drive was.

this is just west and a little south of central colorado.  a little farther west from this beautiful place, is the MOON.  they didn't really fake the moon landing, they just didn't tell everyone that the moon was in colorado.  western colorado is a foreign land unlike anything that i have every seen before.  the mountains start to flatten out and become mesas and everything else looks sort of desert like, but different at the same time.  i have never seen anything more interesting and yet terrifying at the same time.  by the time we got close to where we were going, it was quite dark and everything was terribly frightening.  we drove for miles without seeing any sign of life and then we would come across a small town called hotchkiss.  it was so alien that erin and i were actually contemplating turning around and going back the way we came.  however, we kept telling ourselves that it would get better when we got to cedaredge because they had more than one hotel meaning it was a decent sized town with at least a fast food establishment.  we were WRONG.  cedaredge is a tiny town that is home to a single restaurant, the blue sky saloon, whose kitchen sadly closes at 9pm.  it was well after 10 when we got to cedaredge so we had to do some serious searching for food.  the guy at the front desk of the hotel even admitted that the road we took was terrifying.  we ended up finding pretty good chinese food in delta for dinner that night, but it was hard to be excited about where we were, though we were unbelievably slap happy.  the situation got terribly funny the longer we were in it.  by the time we tried to sleep, we couldn't help but laugh at everything.  i don't think either of us actually slept that night.

the next morning we got up and cedaredge was a bit less scary by daylight.  the mesas are actually quite pretty, though not as pretty as the mountains and the sun made everything seem a little less desolate and terrifying.  the drive to montrose was still a little scary and the edge of montrose itself was even worse.  the road we took into montrose led us into a tiny, mountain town that had some small businesses, but none that looked in anyway successful or decent.  after i dropped erin off at the hospital, i decided to go investigate.  in the end montrose is not at all a bad town.  it has a decent business community and even has a walmart and a chilis.  if only the hospital had a budget enough to pay erin enough to make it worth moving across the country. 

these are the pictures of western CO.

now if that doesn't look like the moon, then i don't know what does :)

on the way back east, i took erin up to mt. evans and we stopped in idaho springs for pizza at beau joes.  it was overall a good trip, though montrose and the surrounding areas are quite scary.  this is the progression of the view of mountains as you drive from western to eastern CO. 

and on the way back from the moon, you get to the highest paved road in north america.  mt. evans is a really beautiful place and the sheer elevation is beyond comprehension.  the road to the top is not well paved and it takes some really interesting twists and turns making it not for the faint of heart.  here are the pictures of the journey.

and as you can tell, we survived our trip to the moon and back.  it was a rather interesting adventure and i am quite glad that erin and i were together for the journey.