From Stella: The drive today was absolutely beautiful! We saw hills with bright red colors and lots of trees and ski lifts, which are pretty cool. When we got to Fruita, we dropped the cat off with the concierge because our room wasn't ready and then we went to the Colorado National Monument. I earned a Junior Ranger Badge and I'm hoping to get more at Zion to add to my collection. After that we checked into the hotel, and we went to the Dinosaur museum. It was really cool. After the museum, we went to the pool and had a quick swim before dinner. At dinner I had the best pizza I have ever eaten. It was pesto, with tomatoes, feta and a little mozerella. It was magical. Now I'm going for a night swim, come back and eat a cookie!
From Stacey: Ugh, last night was awful. After the delicious mexican food, we fell asleep a little early. Our room this time definitely wasn't the nicest, but eh, it's just a room for the night right? We had one of those rooms with the adjoining doors to a suite we had no affiliation with. These people were disgusting. I guess the waiver for being a non-smoking room means nothing, and the threat of having to pay an additional $250 cleaning charge is worthless. These people partied, yelled at each other, smoked and got loud phone calls from about midnight until 4am. My dad and I gave up and at about 5:15am we just started getting ready to head out. Breakfast at the hotel was awful. We made a stop at Starbucks. Thank you Starbucks for being the first of many wonderful things today!
We got on the road and drove through downtown Denver and into the Rocky Mountains. Stella is right, it was absolutely beautiful! I haven't driven through Colorado since the summer of 1993 and it is so much more beautiful than I remember. It starts out with the climb into 10,000+ foot level with steep hills of pine trees (not the best picture, but you get the gist:
After the steep climb, the drive down the mountain has so many different and majestic vistas, from lakes to Eagle River that follows the highway and flows into the Colorado River. There are lots of terrain changes, not all of which are obsessively shown here:
Once we got into Fruita, which is just past Grand Junction and just before the Utah border, we attempted to check into our hotel, but the room wasn't ready (probably because our sleep was rudely interupted), but we were able to drop of Jojo, the cat at the hotel. We had lunch and went to Colorado National Monument, which I was attempting to tell Stella was exactly like Zion, so we wouldn't have to go there too. I probably could have gotten away with it until the wonderful park ranger told Stella that the Jr. Ranger Badge at Zion is made of wood, not plastic. Jeez. Anyways, back to the park, seriously it is amazing! If you are ever in the Grand Junction/Fruita area, I recommend just bypassing interstate 70 and taking monument road, which is much longer, but totally worth it!
After the park, we went to Dinosaur Journey Museum to see what it was all about. The museum is really great for kids. It was a quick stop for me, about 90 minutes, but if you have a dino fanatic (husband, aka Ross Geller, I'm talking to you), it could probably be a 3-4 hour event. It was worth the stop. Stella got to play paleontologist/anthropologist for a while. She had fun.
We had dinner at this pizza place. It came recommended from Carlos' friend Alvin. We do not argue with Alvin about food...ever. He is always right, and this is no exception! They had me when I looked at the menu and they had micro-brews. We decided to extend our stay in St George to 2 days instead of just 1 because Stella won the Zion discussion. We have decided that we are going to be indentured servants to my dad in order to repay him for this incredible adventure!
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