2016 Western Trip – Days 32-33 – Montrose & Gunnison

If you followed along during this summers Colorado trip, you may recall my computer crashed so I was missing some posts that I had already writtren up.  My buddy Joe has recoved the info from the old computer hard drive and I wanted to go ahead and post these for documentation sake - I'll leave them up for a couple of days then put them back in the correct order - this is second of three.

Our last day in Montrose was a beautiful, clear 83F and it was devoted to a few last minute things and getting ready to leave on Sunday.  Everything outside needed to be wiped off to remove the dust in preparation of stowing – I don’t want to take much of it home and it’s the one thing I don’t like about the western states – there is a thin layer on the inside as well.

We brought a brisket from home and decided we needed to make room in the freezer for stuff to take back home and I decided to just cook it in the oven using a recipe from Ina Garten.  I followed the recipe except I added a few potatoes as well and I didn’t use as much juice as my pan was just a little bigger than the roast.

The meal was delicious and I will definitely cook brisket this way again.

Just like in Grand Junction, we got the coach ready for the road by 9am then headed to Montrose for brunch at the The Stone House - it was good but not special.

After breakfast, we returned to the campground, hooked up the car, and began the 98 mile trip to Gunnison and since we’d been over half the road going to Paonia, we knew what to expect in part, including construction delays – the trip took about 2 hours – my kind of travel day.  We stayed at the Mesa Campground just a few miles west of Gunnison. 

After getting Sweetie set up and resting for a few minutes, we decided to check out Gunnison, Crested Butte, and Mount Crested Butte, where we came upon a decent dirt road with quite a pit of traffic, so we took it.  As it turns out it goes to Gothic, CO which is the home of the Rocky Mountain Biologic Laboratory where the environment has been studied since 1928 - as you can see, it's pretty rustic.

These  last two shots are of the valley on the way back and a little piece of the ski hill - definitely a very pretty area.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

8/20 – 8/21/16 event dates