Moose in the Mountains

October 27, 2011

I guess you can say we didn’t get enough time in the National Parks this Spring…because we are BACK!  After a busy summer we decided we would load up our 11-week-old great dane puppy, Moose, and head to Colorado.  Our plan for this trip was to rent an RV in Colorado Springs and drive to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, then on to Great Sand Dunes National Park.

                                   Garden of the Gods Park

On Monday, we arrived in Colorado Springs and stayed the night in a hotel.  We ate pasta take out and watched the Rangers win another World Series Game!  In the morning we went to Garden of the Gods park and walked around for about an hour and took in some beautiful scenery.  After enjoying the beautiful weather, we headed to the RV rental place and picked up our home for the rest of the week.  We both realized immediately that this was a step up from the travel trailer we stayed in for six weeks.  Moose is an awesome traveler and took to the RV with no problems.  

On Tuesday, we drove four hours and arrived at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park outside Gunnison, Colorado in the evening.  We had learned that an extreme cold front was coming that night so we were prepared for an adventure as usual.  When we woke up Wednesday morning there was snow covering everything and a heavy fog was in the air.  This park is known for one of the deepest, narrowest, and most impressive canyons in the world, but with the fog and snow we couldn’t see it even when standing right on the edge of a half-mile-deep ledge.  Snowed in and freezing, we stayed in the RV most of Wednesday.  We read, watched DVD’s on a laptop, drank tea, and slept most of the day away.  That evening, with cabin fever picking away at us, we went for a drive around the canyon.  In a few areas the fog was cleared enough to see the brilliant canyon walls dropping straight down below us.  We took a couple of short hikes with Moose and enjoyed the snow covered wilderness.   Luckily, most of the low-lying clouds had cleared out of the canyon on Thursday morning, so we went on another hike before leaving for Great Sand Dunes National Park.  

                          Standing above the 1/2-mile deep canyon