D to E: Gooseberry Road, UT to Lake Pueblo State Park, CO
7.20.10
In order to make it to Washington DC in six days, we were hoping to cover about 500 miles each day, so we got up and out by 7am. We were also hoping to escape driving during the heat of the day once again. We stopped in Green River, UT and found a cute coffee shop with excellent bagels and espresso where we wrote postcards and mailed them off across the street at the post office. Emily fell asleep and Max saw a golden eagle in the middle of the highway. There had been a sign that said simply, "EAGLES ON ROAD," but Max was still too astonished to wake Emily in time to catch a glimpse. Other cars passed it by as if this was a normal experience. We entered Colorado on I-70/US-50 and made a short detour to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Apparently just because we had never heard of it didn't mean that it was going to be empty. It was full of tourists staring into the canyon of prehistoric gneiss (pronounced "nice" and sparking lots of puns on the drive over). There was no shade to speak of, and too crowded for walking around with Buzz, so we quickly moved on. The weather became cloudy and cooler as we finally crossed the Rockies without any car trouble at all at Monarch's Pass (11,312 feet, the 8th highest pass over the Rocky Mountains). US-50 follows along the Arkansas River, which seems to have a lot of river rafting activities in the summer. For dinner, we stopped at Canon City's "The Owl" for $1.60 hamburgers and french fries. The Burgers were worth the journey so far and the staff was very friendly. although, when we asked our waitress what the best way across Colorado was, explaining that we were taking US-50 and other secondary roads across the country and weren't using a GPS, she replied with "Why didn't you just take a covered wagon?" Ha. The best place to stay distance wise was Lake Pueblo State Park, which was a bit too far off the highway and more expensive than we expected ($20, combined day use and camping fee) and not very picturesque. Although it was nice to have showers in the morning, we realized that east of the Rockies it's much harder to find free gems of a campground like Gooseberry Road.