Monday, May 6th – Wednesday, May 8th, 2013
We left the Walmart parking lot in Grand Junction, CO to take US-50 East to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (a place I had never heard of). On our way to the visitor’s center, a German Shepherd came out of nowhere and ran in front of our van and we nearly hit it. We were mad to see the dumbfounded campers slowly walking towards us to retrieve their dog that they weren’t watching. One of the last things we would ever want to experience is to hit and kill someone’s dog, even if the owners were stupid.
We registered for a camp site inside the park at the South Rim Campground since it was pretty cheap. We watched lightening strike the mountains in the distance through the massive windows of the visitor’s center as a thunderstorm rolled in.
Then, we were off to the town of Montrose to check out the historic district. We walked into one of the stores called “The Wild Rose” and a woman who resembled a gothic Cyndi Lauper came over to greet us. Trevor asked me, “What the fuck is that?” as she approached. I smacked him. I’m pretty sure she heard him. She was super nice, although her store was an odd combination of styles. We would see the words “wild rose” wherever we went afterwards as a constant reminder of this peculiar lady. I even named my new red Subaru Forester “Wild Rose” in her honor.
We grabbed coffee at The Coffee Trader in town before returning to the park for some serious down time. It began to sleet, so we spent most of the evening in the van. I overheard a howling sound from an unknown source which resulted in an eerie walk to the pit toilet later that night. I expected something to eat me at any given moment, but all I ended up seeing was a mouse that I hoped would not follow me back to the van. I’m food aggressive and he wouldn’t last long.
The next morning in general was pretty laid back. We decided to register for a different camp site for the night so we could get one with an electrical outlet so we could charge our batteries. We saw a rain cloud blowing in our direction so we quickly hooked the batteries up, covered them with a tarp, then hopped in the van to listen to the radio.
We still hadn’t really explored the park, although it would be our second day there, so we decided to cruise by all the view points marked on the map. We first stopped at the Pulpit Rock Overlook, then Cross Fissures, then Dragon Point.
They were all different views of the black cliffs with the Gunnison River below and snow-capped mountains in the distance. We got out at the High Point parking lot and took a short walk along the nature trail.
We ate and watched all the fat robins hopping around doing the same, then we returned to Montrose briefly before spending the evening lounging around our camp site.
Snow was beginning to fall once we woke up so we quickly packed up the batteries and worked our way down the mountain.
As the snow started coming down heavily, I worried that we may not make it and that one of us would have to resort to cannibalism. Did we find some strange drifter to eat out of desperation? Did I end up eating Trevor? Did he end up eating me? Is this really Stubbs writing, or will this be one of those M. Night Shamalama-ding-dong twist endings and he’s been writing under my guise the whole time? Tune in next week to find out!
Jump Back to Part 25: Construction, Rancid Meat & Arches
Jump Ahead to Part 27: Humping Cows, Pot Tourism & Hairy Legs
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Start Over at Part 01: The Blue Bubble, Freebies & A Rude Awakening
Stubbs Rambles On 