“If they want to stay they stay
If they want to go they go
They don’t care how they get there long as they get somewhere they know” – Eric Hutchinson
When we woke up the smell of fish in the room had diminished significantly, hopefully a good omen for the rest of the day. Our first destination of the day was Colorado National Monument. We didn’t have a specific hike in mind so we headed straight to the visitor’s center to seek advice. The advice was less than satisfying, especially to Molly who swore a lot once we got back in the car while insisting that the map was wrong.
We did do a couple of quick hikes to views of Independence Monument and the coke ovens. Generally speaking I find natural features to be more impressive than man-made ones. However, I got kind of excited to see some real coke ovens. It was pretty deflating to find out the Colorado NM version of coke ovens are just hills that early settlers thought looked like them. Stupid settlers.
The other highlight of the monument was a side trip out the back entrance. We spotted a sign indicating there was a “store” five miles down the road. With nothing better to do we decided to see what type of store it was. Molly was said she’d “do anything for WalMart”, but instead we found a cute little country store with two cafe tables out front. It would have been a great place to have a cup of coffee if it hadn’t been closed.
At that point we decided we were done with the monument and headed down to Grand Junction. We discovered its cute little downtown area where Molly and Ellie each found a souviner. After finishing there we decided to continue south to Montrose to have lunch at Horsefly Brewery. As we were leaving town Molly got a text from Mary and Roger Berry offering to meet us there.
We met up on the patio where we caught up and had a great lunch. We made a couple more stops in Montrose to stock up on gas, groceries, and Russell Stover chocolate and made our way to the Berry’s beautiful mountain home. We spent the afternoon chatting and walking around Sarah and Kevin’s new property.
All day long we’d gotten whiffs of the Greek chicken Mary had roasting in the oven. It tasted as good as it smelled, and we got to enjoy it on the patio with views of the mountains and sunset.