Date Trip Day 1: Exclamation Point

While we were in Colorado, Jeff and I left our kids with my parents for 2 nights/3 days so we could go on date trip. It was our first overnight date in two and a half years! We decided to do a tour-de-Colorado for our date, and it was a road trip within a road trip. We spent over 16 hours driving on several exceedingly scenic byways in south central Colorado, stopping to visit two of Colorado's four national parks: Black Canyon of the Gunnison (near Montrose, CO) and Great Sand Dunes (near Alamosa, CO). 

Our driving route looks so small on the Colorado map! It was over 700 miles of road, which took a while to cover on those winding one-lane mountain roads.

Zoomed in route map.

We left Denver at 7:30am on Friday, July 23rd and headed west through the mountains. We quickly learned to take advantage of civilization when it popped up alongside the road, because the towns are few and far between in that rugged wilderness! Thanks for the bathroom break, Fairplay, CO! On the road, we listened to a couple of hours of John Denver because that's the most Colorado-i-est music we could think of. The Rocky Mountains are definitely high! 

After climbing and climbing, we crawled through Monarch Pass, elevation 10,000 feet, guardrails optional. Seriously, there were not nearly enough guardrails lining the sheer dropoff on one side of highway 50. It was intense! After that, the drive continued to be spectacular, with an unexpected quantity of scenic variety. Right when I got used to one type of scenery, it changed and I stayed interested. Even with the natural beauty, the drive was pretty long. After we passed the scenic Dillon Pinnacles and the Blue Mesa Reservoir, we turned onto an even smaller, curvier road (Hwy 92) and then an even smaller gravel road which took us to the north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. 

After over 6 hours of driving, we parked at the North Vista Trail We changed into our running clothes in the back of the van, used the vault toilet, cinched on our running hydration packs, and hit the trail around 1:45pm. It was hot! But the views were amazing. I tried not to feel bad for Jeff, following along behind me at my slow trail running pace. He is much more comfortable and efficient running faster, but he was dedicated to running together on our date-run. It was fun doing a trail with my husband! Ok, it was more of a run-hike, thanks to high elevation, high temperatures, and plenty of rocky uphill. 

Exclamation Point was 1.5 miles down the trail, and we exclaimed when we saw it. Then we continued along the trail up to Green Mountain. We talked and gasped at the canyon views as we trotted/walked along. The hot sun and thin dry air made us very thankful for our hydration packs. When we finished our 6.75 mile run, we drove the final 90 minutes to Montrose, CO to check in to our hotel, stopping at a gas station along the way to pick up some Gatorade. That blue Gatorade was pure nectar after all of those sweaty sunny miles!

Once we were cleaned up, we left our hotel to explore the cute town of Montrose. All of the sit-down restaurants were crowded (it was Friday night after all), so we chose a drive-thru burger place called Crash Burger. An unfamiliar "dive" restaurant is always a risk--it could be awesome or it could be terrible. Crash Burger turned out to be good, though I almost always crave a big beefy burger after hard running, so maybe I was biased. Since there wasn't anywhere to sit at the burger place, we drove to a park and ate our burgers at a pleasant picnic table. Thunderstorms were in the forecast for the evening, and a few raindrops fell as we were finishing dinner. 

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is a Black Sky Park, which means it has amazing stargazing. The clouds from the thunderstorms clogged the night sky, but we were tired enough not to be too sad about missing the stars.

Day one of our date trip was a success!

Pictures from the drive. I couldn't resist taking pictures with my phone out the car windows while Jeff drove.

Fairplay, Colorado. Such a funny name for a town.

Our buggy windshield kind of killed the potential for a really good picture, but it still worked.

The Dillon Pinnacles: helloooo scenery! Right when we thought we'd seen it all, BAM. Colorado gave us more. I took this picture from the side window of our van while Jeff drove. The side window had far less bugs splattered on it.

Our first view of the Black Canyon came almost an hour before we actually entered the national park, at a necessary vault toilet rest stop. Close to half of our rest stops on this remote drive were random wilderness vault toilets parked on the roadside, which thankfully were stocked with toilet paper.

Continuing up narrow Highway 92. I guess they call it a highway because it's the only way? 

Trail headshot: ready to run!

The Black Canyon was deep and rocky and rugged and satisfyingly scenic.

Climbing up Green Mountain gave us a wider view of the canyon-slash. It looked like an earthquake cracked the ground and made the canyon, but it was the Gunnison River eroding the rock over time that did it.

Up, up, up.

Kissing picture! This was a date after all.

Exclaiming. Exclamation Point was a fun name.

Back on the road, heading for Montrose. We could always see rain in the distance while driving. Sometimes the road wound through the rain, many times it completely missed the rain.

Crash Burger (I took this picture the next day when we went back there for lunch.

Our hotel had a comfortable bed and fishy carpet.