Colorado National Monument
Colorado National Monument is not a national park, but it is pretty close. In fact, our NPS pass got us into the park at no charge. This park is a series of canyons and monoliths along a 22 mile winding road from Fruita, Colorado to Grand Junction, Colorado. Over the past few days, Don and I have driven many miles of steep and winding roads with canyons and cliffs. However, this drive gave us both a touch of motion sickness. We couldn’t figure out why this was different, but it definitely was. This park was beautiful and had lots of hiking trails, but dogs aren’t not allowed on the trails, so we just visited the many pull-outs and overlooks. After the park, we drove to Palisades. We’ve always wanted to visit this little town. It reminded us of Napa, California with lots of vineyards and small farms. We were a little early in the season, but could see that in the summertime there are lots of farm stands and “you pick” farms selling peaches, cherries, apricots, corn, etc. It also had a cute downtown where we had lunch. We will go back to Palisades!
Saddlehorn
This is the view from the Visitors Center
Independence Overlook
Independence Monument
This is a popular rock climbing destination for CRAZY people. We looked with binoculars to see if anyone was climbing today, but no.
Coke Ovens
These weird geologic domes are called “ovens”.
Cold Shivers Point - Looking West
Cold Shivers Point - Looking East
Moab, UT
We checked out of our Fairfield Inn hotel this morning and had to take a few pics to show what a beautiful location this is. This red cliffs were right across the road and the Colorado River was right behind the hotel. It was literally 4 miles from our hotel to the entrance gates at Arches National Park.
