Why I need to get my Porsche out here

Check that out. That's the road up ahead. No gaurd rail, shear cliff off to the right. Drops you down into the National Monument Canyon. Just an amazing road, with plenty of twisty turns to keep your attention as you take in the scenery.

Am I the only one that thinks of that scene in Cars with Lightning chasing the Porsche when I see these roads? I'm just so amazed that this is Colorado, and not Arizona. I mean there are some pretty snowy roads out here too. Like Highway 50 to Gunnison. Still rock walls along the road, but a river on the other side makes it look pretty too.

And just to show you the different climates out here, the picture above was taken the same day (within a couple hours actually) as these two shots. About 60 miles away on the road up to the Grand Mesa. An amazing stretch of highway, that winds around these huge cavern walls.

Hopefully I'm doing another drive this weekend, over to Moab in Utah (remember Grand Junction is only 30 miles from the Utah border, so it's not that far). And maybe to Arches National Park . Should be pretty cool. More pictures to come.

The Black Canyon

Sounds kinda spooky, doesn't it. "The Black Canyon" Well, it's not really spooky, but it is pretty cool. Not too much is open in the winter, but there were two spots that I could still get to. This was on my drive from a week and a half ago, but I'm just getting around to posting again. The Black Canyon Park is between Grand Junction and Gunnison (which is really close to Crested Butte). So about an hour or so from me. I'll definitely go back in the summer when you can go down into the canyon.

And these are my friends from the side of the road. Not in the park. Just along the side of Highway 50 on the way to Gunnison. (yes they were that close. I don't have an optical zoom on this camera. They were just chillin about 10 feet off the side of the road.)

My first weekend: The Colorado National Monument

Well, seeing as how this National Monument of a park is basically right in Grand Junction, I figure I'll start there for checking out the area. Obviously, it's beautiful. Kinda like a baby Grand Canyon that overlooks the town. You can hike, camp, and picnic there. But seeing as it's winter time, I'll just drive around it, enjoy the beauty & granduer, and take some pics to show all of you.

Of course with drop offs like that, they've got some fences to hold you back. Right? Well, there are some, but you'd think that it wouldn't be so easy to get around them...

There are also some really cool splines, towers, and mesas in this canyon.

And just as an explanation of how close this canyon is to Grand Junction, let's look at the next pic. Off in the distance is the mountain range known as the Bookcliffs. The Bookcliffs and Grand Mesa form one side of the Mesa Valley, while the National Monument forms the other. So in this next pic, the town you see between the canyon and the Bookcliffs is part of Grand Junction. Yes, it is that close. And just to prove these are all my shots....here's the zoom zoom.

Kinfolk said, "Jeff move away from there."

Said Colorado is the place you ought to be, so I packed up the car and moved to.....Grand Junction.

Yup, after getting laid off back in October, Julie & I decided that now is the time to start our transition to get out of Michigan and move to Colorado. So I got a job at Reynolds Polymer Technologies, designing large aquarium structures out of clear plastic acrylic. When I say large, I'm talking tunnels that people walk through under polar bear exhibits (RPT did the Detroit Zoo one), or the 50' tall 36'diameter cylindrical aquarium suspended 29' off the ground that an elevator runs through (DomAquaree, Berlin, Germany). They also do weird/neat not so huge projects, like David Blaine's sphere that he spent a week in, or the Sky Spas at the Palms Hotel in Vegas (6 jacuzzi's that look like balconies overlooking the strip). Pretty cool, huh? Well that's my thinking.

So I piled what I could into the little zoom-zoom.

And started my drive out through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and into Nebraska. That was day one. Now remember, this is February, so of course, there was snow on the road and it was extremely windy, but I survived, and managed to stay mostly in my lane through to Omaha, Nebraska. Then day two I headed out of Omaha, and drove past Besy's favorite covered bridge, for no apparent reason, so they call it a museum.

No, I didn't stop at the covered bridge. Sorry, it just didn't seem cool enough. So I continue on, through Nebraska, and into Colorado. After talking to my Summit County Weather Authority (aka in-laws that live up there), I make the decision to drive straight through to Grand Junction, and pass up visiting with my 8 month old twin nephews (I'll hopefully see them in two weeks). Now just north of Denver I run into another issue: traffic completely stopped on I-76, and truckers standing on the side of the road talking about how if they were in a car, they'd turn around on the highway and find another way around the flipped over semi-truck that's blocking both lanes up ahead.

So that's what I did, didn't get a ticket, and only added about 20 minutes to my drive time. So it's through Denver, and up into the mountains. One more picture for Besy, and any other Transformers fan out there.

Drove through the mountains, where it was snowing lightly, but not too bad. (Glad my wife made me get those new tires though) And made it into Grand Junction Wednesday night. Good thing too, cause they closed I-70 on Thursday into Friday. So I was able to apartment hunt, find a little one bedroom that's furnished, get moved in, and the power turned on by the weekend. Then spent all weekend getting whatever supplies couldn't fit in the Mazda. The apartment is not too much to look at, but here's a shot of complex, and the mountains of Mesa Valley all around it. Of course, they look better in person, but this is just a taste of what it's like here. Now it's time to start working again, but I'll have more posts as I start to explore the area on the weekends to come.