Rex and Nancy's Travels - "ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST" - JRR Tolkein

We are staying at the Blue Mesa Recreational Ranch which is across the highway from Blue Mesa Reservoir. This beautiful Columbine garden was just outside the laundry. Blue Mesa Reservoir is in the Curecanti National Recreation Area. It is 20 miles long and the largest reservoir in Colorado. While we are here we are going to see the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and take some 4WD drives into the beautiful mountains of the western slope of Colorado. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park We spent a day at the north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. We drove the South Rim Road and stopped at all the overlooks. This is Rex’s first visit to this park and he was amazed at how beautiful and rugged it is. Nancy was here before it was a National Park (about 27 years ago) and was glad to see many improvements in the facilities.             On another day we took a National Park Service boat ride on Morrow Point Reservoir into the up

We had planned to go to Moab and tour Arches and Canyon Lands National Parks when we left Mt. Pleasant; but we decided it was too hot there now and we wouldn’t enjoy it. We wanted to do some hiking in the parks and Nancy finds the older she gets the less she can tolerate really hot weather. We have been to both parks before so we will wait until we can visit when it is a little cooler. Consequently, we headed to the James M. Robb - Colorado River State Park in Fruita, CO. This is a really nice state park along the Colorado River. They have a nice trail that follows the river for about ¼ mile. We have enjoyed walking the dogs on this trail in the evenings. We drove the Palisade Fruit and Wine Trail and found our favorite winery, Colorado Cellars, where we stocked up on some great wine. We stopped at a few fruit and vegetable stands and got some great cherries and fresh snow peas (the only produce in season now). We also went to the Colorado National Monument and drove the Rim R

We moved north to Mt. Pleasant, UT where we are staying at Pleasant Creek Ranch which is our home park in the Camper World Resort system. This is a really nice park with grass all around our site and shade trees. It has been a long time since the dogs had the chance to stretch out on grass and they are enjoying it. We are in the Sanpete Valley between the Wasatch Range and the Wasatch Plateau. This valley is very green and lush with hay and alfalfa fields and pastures with sheep, cows and horses. We are going to spend a couple of weeks here doing some sightseeing, catching up on chores and relaxing. We drove the Nebo Loop Scenic Byway in the Wasatch Mountains. The byway went by 11,928 ft high Mt. Nebo – beautiful in its mantle of snow.                       We stopped at Devil’s Kitchen, a small area of hoodoos which were nice but kind of anticlimactic after visiting Bryce National Park and Red Canyon!                     We ended up in Provo and drove a f

We arrived at Torrey, UT and are staying at the Sand Creek RV Park, which is about 5 miles from Capitol Reef National Park. We took the10 mile scenic drive south into the park – another one of our nation’s treasures. At the end of the scenic road we hiked into Capitol Gorge. A short distance into the gorge we came upon these petroglyphs. Further along the gorge we hiked up the canyon wall to “The Tanks” which are large waterpockets that are eroded into the sandstone. These waterpockets catch and hold rainwater and snowmelt and serve as water sources for many animals. We were able to see 4 of these tanks but only two had water in them. At the Visitors Center is the site of an old Mormon town called Fruita. There are still lots of fruit trees in the park and visitors are allowed to pick fruit in season. We stopped at a country store/museum and bought some fresh pies and scones – Mmmm good. From the Visitors Center we headed east through the p