Day 18 - Vernal, Utah to Grand Junction, Colorado

We left Dinosaur early so we could see the sun rise and the migratory cranes roosting. (We had previously thought these birds were dinosaurs, before our ranger told us the facts. Granted, she also thought the Earth was over 10,000 years old, so take this information with a grain of salt.)

Driving south to Grand Junction we passed many oil rigs all which supported the same candidate, but we also passed many Obama signs on LARGE farms! This norm-breaking was refreshing.

Lunch consisted of PBJ outside of Target, in which people treated us like we were homeless and gave judgmental looks before hopping into their overly large one-person transportation devices. We now felt more empathy to those who live this nomadic lifestyle permanently.

Finally, we made it to Grand Junction! City of birth for Maryanne and Helen! This glorious town had an even more wonderful coffee shop with .50 refills! We were able to spend a few hours updating the blog, catching up on the news and getting extremely manic.

We then went to our place of adventure for the day – Colorado National Monument! We decided to interview and attempt to get a back country camping permit – this ordeal we thought would take all afternoon, but after 3 minutes of declaring we understood no fires or weapons were allowed, we were cleared to camp anywhere 300 feet from a trail!

There were only about two hours of sun left, so Helen lead the troops and carried 60% of the equipment three miles uphill. Maryanne trudged and was able to spot MOUNTAIN GOATS and make sure the entire party was able to see these stereotypically evasive creatures.

Not much later, the powers above paid Maryanne back for her sins by having her sit on a “mother fucking cactus.” This is an exact quote of what the cacti was dubbed by Maryanne.

Helen cooked a delicious meal using couscous and chicken cubes from the 1970s that had been “borrowed” from a certain Beth Brown’s kitchen unbeknownst to her.

Settling into the valley for the night, the troupe was able to see the Independence Monument through one window and the dormant volcano, Mesa Verde through the doorway. All in all, it was a mediocre camping spot.

At about 3AM there was some creature movement outside. Were the mountain goats visiting or had a mountain lion found them? We’ll never know because Helen’s ferocious growling made the creature scamper. Helen later denied that any animals came by and that she had growled. But, they did and she did.