On To Silt and Carbondale, Then a Big Detour

So we left Montrose on our way to a very nice park right along the Colorado River in Silt.  It is the Glenwood Springs West/Colorado River KOA, quite a mouthful.  We splurged on a waterfront site complete with concrete patio, gazebo, gas grill, and fire pit.  And something we weren't expecting.

So we got set up and at happy hour Jan and I went out under the gazebo, set up two chairs to enjoy the sites and river rushing by.  Now you may not believe anything I say from here out, but it is true, and if Jan could get on here she would verify it was true.  There are not many things I am more afraid of than spiders, now spiders outside, one or two just moseying along minding their own business wouldn't bother me, assuming they are an appropriate distance away.  So in the above picture you can just see Jan's leg, and since I took this picture you can see where I am sitting.  All of a sudden several spiders, beige/brown came out from under the post on the right side of the pic, and headed right at us!  On a mission, Jan stomped them, and when more reinforcements came out and towards us, she ran and grabbed the wasp spray, for the next 20 minutes we waged war, I actually got a couple while Jan the warrior woman killed at least 30 or so.  Neither of us had ever seen spiders act this way, they were actually after us, strangest, most uncomfortable thing.  At long last with the wasp spray empty and now armed with our fire ant spray, you can see the top of the container by Jan's leg, we prevailed and tried to enjoy what was left of happy hour.  If any of you know of any spiders that act this way, please let us know, needless to say we were way too busy to take any pictures.  They were about quarter sized, some bigger and some smaller, beige brown colored and moved fast enough it was difficult to squish them under your shoe.  I'm palpitating just living through this event again telling the story:-)

We went into Glenwood Springs to run a few errands and go out to lunch, yes food pics again.  We had an excellent lunch at Zheng Asian Bistro.  We each had a cup of soup and shared 3 appetizers.  Everything was delicious!

Hot and Sour soup

Tom Kha Gai soup

From the left, pork wontons with the exceptional guacamole;
shrimp ceviche in the middle;
and 3 sushi tacos, ahi, yellowtail, and salmon on the right

We were only in Silt two nights and then we made our way to the Carbondale/Crystal River KOA, south of Carbondale planning to fish the Crystal River that runs along the campground.  No dice, it was still in run off mode.  So we went up to Basalt to get some lunch and scope out the famous Frying Pan River nearby.  Another delicious lunch at the Brick Pony.

Cuban

Sensational onion rings

Asian Chicken salad

Then we went up to scope out the river, our main reason for being there.  It looked great, it is a tailwater so it was to be expected.  Tailwaters are below dams, therefore flow is controlled by the dam primarily, not mother nature like a freestone river.

So we worked our way back to the campground and sure enough Karen and Tom had arrived again from their detour to Oregon.  We had a nice get together with drinks and dinner.  We had planned to stay in Carbondale for 4 nights, then to Elk Creek Campground on Blue Mesa reservoir, for 3, then Jan and I wanted to do 4 nights at our "secret" boondock spot near Clear Creek.  But, a BIG but.....  There is no sewer hook up in Carbondale, too close to the water, no sewer or water hook up at Elk Creek, and obviously no nothing at the boondock spot.  That's 4 plus 3 plus 4, making 11 days without sewer and 7 without water, and 4 without anything, but that wasn't even the worst of it.  We are all hopelessly addicted to our phones and the internet.  Sad, but true.  In Carbondale, essentially no internet and a little bit of phone, Blue Mesa neither, so we jointly decided a change was warranted.  Of course this is last minute, so it became a challenge, especially with hardly any phone or internet, but we did it.  We dropped 3 nights at Elk Creek, found 2 nights in Gunnison, then we will all go to Clear Creek, the boondock spot.  Confusing, and it is, this year and last, we have set records changing, rearranging, and cancelling reservations.  So with that all set up we went into town for lunch.  The four of us had a nice lunch, after passing restaurant after restaurant closed, whether they didn't  survive Covid or they just can't get help, who knows.  Job opening signs everywhere, and even the restaurant where we did have lunch only had one waitress holding down the fort.

So the next and our last day Jan and I took off early to go fish the Frying Pan.  We gave it a real shot, fished for more than 4 hours at at least 5 different spots and caught...........nothing:-(  It was a beautiful day except for the smoke wafting in from a nearby very recent fire.

Jan doing her best

Me trying

But we had a gorgeous spot for our picnic lunch.

So while we were eating lunch we see the one and only fish we saw that day, jump out of the water below us.  So I went down and flailed around, and so did Jan as one last ditch effort that yielded us as much as the rest of the day did, nothing.

Back together that evening for drinks and we talk about our drive down to Gunnison.  Find out the first route is 135 miles, but goes along a narrow road on the the north rim of the Black Canyon of Gunnison, that is out for Karen and I, then we look at going out around through Grand Junction at 165 miles, all good, right?  No!  We find out with some research Rte 50 east of Gunnison is closed for the most part, only open a few hours a day for an hour at a time, can't deal with that.  So we detour up to I-70, run it east so we go down through Leadville, Buena Vista, and then west to Gunnison, 3 passes; the first near the abandoned town of Gilman, then Tennesee Pass 10,424', then finally the big one, Monarch at 11,312', a total of 222 miles, quite a bit more than we were planning.  But we pulled into Palisades Senior RV Park and found a delightful, well kept, beautiful park that in all our years doing this didn't even know existed.  So 2 nights here for us, maybe 3 for Karen and Tom, then down to our "spot" for 4, and then meet up again for the July 4th week in Creede.

Our very nice site in Gunnison

A Good, But Hot Time in Montrose

We said a temporary goodbye to Karen and Tom as they made their way to Oregon for a repair, and Jan and I headed for Montrose, only 95 miles away if you go up the Million Dollar Highway:-)  For us it was a 170 drive around.  I can only barely deal with the Million Dollar Hwy in the truck and only to the north, the narrowness and incredible drop offs are not my cup of tea, so we go around.

We stay at the Centennial Rv Park about 10 miles south of Montrose, a very busy, nicely laid out park.  We got all settled in and enjoyed our first sunset.

We had a few days before the record heat was to arrive and had several things we wanted to do, go fishing on the Uncompahgre below the Ridgway dam, drive up Owl Creek Pass and have a picnic in the area of Silver Jack Reservoir, and do one of our favorite rides, the Last Dollar Road, and mix it up with some restaurants.

First off was Owl Creek Pass.  I should mention there are several fires in AZ and NM that have affected the amount of smoke in the area, it wafts in and out, so when it is clear we tried to jump on one of our rides.

A gorgeous view at the beginning of our ride

Up and over the pass, then off to find a spot for lunch.  We have really enjoyed this year, this is the first in many, many years we have been here in the spring.  It is nice to see all the green and the rivers flowing, and the ponds, lakes, and reservoirs full.

This was the best we could come up with for our picnic:-)

The lowly dandelion, but they were so prolific, they were stunning.  All the green with the contrast of bright yellow made for some incredible scenery.

Jan's Ram commercial shot:-)

So different to see the aspens green and not golden like in the fall

Coming back we stopped at the Morrow Point Dam along the Gunnison River before it enters the Black Canyon of Gunnison.  We couldn't remember if we had been there before or not, we had.

The Gunnison River below the dam

There was a new addition since we had been there though, they displayed a train on a portion of track that was actually used on the Denver and Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railroad through 15 miles of the canyon, engine #278.

The heat rolled in, 98, 99, even a couple days over 100.  We kind of hunkered in when the day really warmed up, but each evening we managed to get into some shade and still had our cocktail hour outside.  We made quesadillas one night for dinner.

Delish!

The smoke roiled in and changed our plans, so when the next day it was clear, off we went for our Last Dollar Road ride with coffee.  This road has even been written up in travel mags about its beauty.  It starts just south of Ridgway near Ralph Lauren's 22,000 acre ranch and continues eventually to Telluride, it is just beautiful and again this would be the first time driving it in the spring as opposed to fall.

We could see this big fire in Utah that with a westerly wind affected us

The road is rough and slow going, perfect for looking around and enjoying the changing views.  But then it was time for coffee.

Not too shabby, eh?

Then a couple guys came by and made us wonder why??

Way, way too much for me!

Then we worked our way around closer to Telluride, one more incredible view, and then a short cut back.

Enjoyed another sunset and then got ready to fish.  Our first day out for the season.  There is a section of beautiful tailwater under the dam at Ridgway State Park that has been slightly enhanced as a trout habitat, but it is usually crowded.  With the heat wave we knew we had to get in there early before the heat and hopefully before the people.  We accomplished both.  Although I had a couple on, Jan was the winner for the day, she netted our first fish of the year, Jan, 1; Bill, zero:-)

Jan moving up the river

Success!

We don't go out to dinner very often and haven't been out since Wilcox, so we made an exception and had a wonderful Italian dinner at Trattoria di Sofia in Montrose.

My delicious seafood over fettuccini 

And Jan's veal scallopini with artichokes 

We wanted to try a taco restaurant in Ridgway that had good reviews, so we headed south to Gnar.  Glad we did because it was fantastic.  If you like tacos a little different and you're in Ridgway, make sure to go there!

Shrimp

Pork belly on the left, and Korean BBQ with house made kimchi on the right

Another pork belly on the top and a house made spicy lamb sausage on the bottom
Delicious!

So we took one last shot at fishing this morning before we leave tomorrow.  The river is at least 2 feet higher and really cracking along.  Obviously the lake must be approaching full pool so they are letting out more water.  In fact we have never seen the lake as full as it is now.  Neither of us had any luck at all, so we packed it in after a couple hours, and a good thing because as we were leaving about 25 fishermen descended on the place, no combat fishing for us.