Favorite Places

I camped at Rifle Gap St. Pk. in western Colorado. I’ve covered a lot of Colorado over the years but this spot is new to me. It’s a reservoir with wonderful campsites and facilities. The only issue is that the lake is down by about 20 feet. Boaters and fishermen are still able to use it but detracts from its’ beauty a lot.

Today I backtracked without the T@B to Aspen- an all time favorite. I elected not to camp near Aspen because memories of the road from Glenwood Springs to Aspen were not good: narrow, busted up 2-lane road with lots of traffic, etc. Wow! I got a huge surprise! The road is now a 4-lane gem with some fantastic double-decker engineering in the tight spots!! I really regretted not having just brought the T@B to camp near Aspen. Oh, well. I immediately went to the Aspen Highlands ski area where Beth & I once parked to hike to and ,in later years, caught busses to and, later, camped with the kids at Maroon Lake. I even lived at the Highlands for a summer as a fellow at the Aspen Music Institute. Yikes! The broad, dusty, gravel, open parking area is now covered with a huge resort village over a multi level parking garage built into the ground underneath. Feeling like I was on another planet, I negotiated the parking cavern, multi floor escalator, enormous lobby with a 10ft wide fireplace, found the ticket counter and got on a beautiful hybrid bus for the ride. Considering that the busses we used to take were rickety school busses on loan for the summer and that the first time we went to Maroon Bells campground to camp the road was a wide, sometimes single lane, dirt Forest Service road, this was quite a difference. The area has been transformed many times over the years. The campground is gone. Having been destroyed and rebuilt several times by the Forest Service, they finally gave up, removed it and replaced it with facilities that cater to the hundreds of day hikers that flood the area every day. The photos will speak for themselves.

Aspen is crowded as ever but the driving patterns and highways are greatly improved. The look of the town reflects the thousands of trees they planted in the 80’s & 90’s by being a lush, green town as opposed to the dusty gravel grid I remember from the 70’s. Summer clothing sales are on. I found the very same raincoat I bought in Minnesota on sale for $120 on sale at 50% off in Aspen for $225! Such a deal! I grabbed a quick lunch at the Red Onion (been there for over 100 years) and strolled around the town until I heard 2 entirely different groups of women complaining about their plastic surgery and a pair of 5 year old girls dissing a mutual acquaintance: “she’s got issues, you know? Her Mom’s all about brain candy and she’s already super OCD herself…” Time to leave Aspen.


Back at camp at Rifle Gap With no wifi I’m getting ready to move a few miles down the road to Grand Junction. I’ll spend the day exploring there and then make the big push into canyon country and central Utah where I’ll stock up for the desert.