Well, Tuesday we had decided to go back up to Owl Creek Pass and continue on to Silver Jack then to Cimmaron and back to Montrose – about a 4 1/2 hour drive. I had been having some shortness of breath for a while and didn’t feel really great, so we decided to stop at the Medical Clinic in Ridgway, thinking it’s a town of 300 and we can probably just walk in. Well, it was a bustling little practice. They were very nice and worked me at 3:00 – we had gotten there about 1:30. I saw the PA, we all were pretty sure it was altitude, but she wanted to check with the doctor. He came in and talked for a long time and was pretty sure it was altitude too, but he wanted to do an EKG just to check. Everything was fine, but we didn’t do our trip, since it was about 5:00 when we finished up. So, Wednesday we did our trip. The leaves were beautiful, the drive up to Owl Creek was rough and bumpy like last time, but going out the other side, (the counties changed) the road was much smoother.
There was a lot more color at Owl Creek Pass, even some snow left over from a few days ago. The gold aspen leaves that had blown off were stuck in the firs – it looked like Christmas trees.
We went through beautiful ranchland and national forest. The colors were different on the other side of the pass – different trees and dryer. We got behind a rancher with his horses and dogs (aussies – Carol) and followed them all the way back to his ranch.
Coming back into Montrose, we were right at the entrance to The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, so we took a side trip.
It was after 5:00 and you couldn’t see to the bottom of the canyon – I think it only gets two hours of sunlight each day. It was an amazing whole in the earth cut by a river. We didn’t do the drive along the rim, but headed back home.
And just to end with a few miscellaneous pictures from the week.
GA Gypsies - Fulltiming 