Today we grabbed an Uber from the campground and picked up a rental car. We’re really going to have to look into getting some form of tow behind for trips where we spend several days in the same place. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to scoot around without all your stuff and explore without worrying about roads and diesel fill-ups.
First exploration of the day was the Rim Rock Drive of the Colorado National Monument. After being there and reading the literature, still not sure why it’s the “Colorado” National Monument. While the scenery is pretty and even striking, the area doesn’t strike me as being iconic of Colorado so much as Utah but I guess they had to call it something.
In the background of these pictures are the Pine Gulch/Grizzly Creek & Cameron Peak fires, which, still burning with little containment a week later, have grown to almost 100,000 acres.
Next we headed away from the fires to the Grand Mesa on the other side of the valley and along the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway to Mesa Lake where we found a 1-1/2 mile wooded trail with wildflowers, shade and many views of the clear waters.
Although we got several pictures of the lake, we did miss one of Dingo in the water … Dingo loves water. She loves the beach, rivers, ponds, and lakes. So when we went down by the shore here, she was going in. You may be able to tell from the pictures above that the water level in the middle of August is a little low and that the “shore” is actually lake bed and that the lake bed is pretty much just mud. So when Dingo went for her swim, she walked right into it and immediately sunk to her belly … in mud. So you’ll have to imagine the picture that we didn’t get and know that the dog wasn’t the only one in the mud. Thankfully I was wearing shorts. Did I mention that we were in a rental car?
166 miles today (driving a rental is still driving), Total: 3,131
