Autumn is in the Air

I was up at the crack of dawn today (6am that is). That's impressive for me for those of you who don't know me well. I was ready to get moving and start exploring new places...unfortunately Scott was still tired and wanted more sleep. That doesn't happen too often where I'm ready to start the day and he wants to sleep; although he says it was just too cold to get out of his sleeping bag. I finally got him moving at about 8am. The tent was covered in frost, apparently it was cold last night, I was nice and toasty with my many layers of clothes, blankets, and sleeping bag.

Fall Colors

We left for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park through the Rocky Mountains and wow, was the entire drive today beautiful. All of the aspen trees and oak bushes are in the process of changing colors. The drive was beautiful and I can only imagine how much nicer it will be a week from now. Even today we saw yellows and reds! I LOVE the fall.

Huge Canyon

Rapids

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park was beautiful. Essentially, it was a huge canyon approximately 140 miles long and over 2000 feet deep. We only saw the south end but we are told the north end is even more spectacular. We didn't do a hike today but even on the rim, 2000 feet above the rushing water, we could hear the rapids. The views were spectacular and Scott is already planning our next trip back to this canyon for a few days of backpacking.

After Gunnison we headed for Durango. This portion of the drive may be Scott's and my favorite of the trip. We passed through two very charming mountain towns, Ouray and Silverton. The entire drive felt like we were going through an amazing gorge/canyon the entire 60 miles. Some portions of the ride were very stressful because there was not a railing and about one foot from the road was a steep drop off. I was thankful we were behind a semi truck that way Scott had to go the speed limit. Other portions of the drive were on green and yellow plateaus and then before we knew it we were headed either up or down another mountain. We also passed through mining towns along the way. It was an incredible drive with all of the trees and plant life changing colors, the crystal clear streams/rivers and some streams that looked yellow, the huge pine trees, and the bare granite peaks with snow. The scenery and drive were breathtaking!

After Durango we headed to Farmington, NM for the night. Tonight we are just doing a quick stop over and then we're hitting the road hopefully bright and early in the morning. When we arrived in Farmington tonight the temperature was 83, I think this is the warmest weather we've seen for over a week. It's only supposed to get down to the 50's tonight!