26 April – Gunnison – Glenwood Springs

Up and at em this morning….well… not quite…gotta take it easy whilst on holidays.  Our destination today is the area near Aspen, so we hit the highways right after breakfast.  We saw a lot of “huntn’, shootn’, fishn’” shacks during the morning and a lot of high country cattle farms.

We stopped at Buena Vista for a diner-burger lunch and to refuel the ole girl (she’s a bit thirsty in the hills) then off again.  We went over a couple of mountain passes during the day that took us well into the snow line and over 11,000 feet.  

We even saw some people battling a section of river rapids on those stand-up paddle boards….seems to be the latest craze on the rapids…..seems to me the quickest way to get wet in freezing, cold water! 

We were wanting to go into Aspen from the south and over Independence Pass, which is over 12,000 feet.  Unfortunately it was closed, even though some web sites showed it as open…..not sure what the deal was there and we didn’t find out that it was closed until we were within spittn’ distance of the pass (at the base of the climb up).  

So we had to double back and go to Glenwood Springs (base entry to Aspen), which is North of Aspen.  This section of the trip took us over Freemont Pass (over 11,000 feet) and through some lovely snowed-covered scenery….oh yeah and past a mine tailings dam.

As we were getting close to Glenwood went past a few ski fields.  Most weren’t operating, but one did seem to have some things still going, including a “half pipe” for snow boarders with few brave souls traversing the curves.

We got into an RV park, just a few minutes out of Glenwood Springs, at around 5ish so we decided to grace Glenwood Springs with our presence and go out for a meal. We voted on a lovely little steak restaurant called……wait for it…. Juicy Lucy’s Steak house.  Steve and Eddie were keen to meet this Lucy lady LOL.  We got there and found that there was an hour waiting time for a table, so we walked around the corner to a steak and seafood restaurant called Finns.  Absolutely lovely it was.  Ros, Ed & Fee had the steak & Snow crab special, while Steve had a half side of BBQ ribs (he was wisely advised against the full side…”many men have failed this venture” the waiter said).  The waiter also gave us a few tips on what is good up at Aspen.  He mentioned that Aspen was open for an extended weekend or two due to additional snow fall and to also keep an eye out for various celebs who frequent Aspen.  We went back to our park, all buoyed up with what we could do in Aspen tomorrow, and found that some dude had taken our spot thinking it was spare….even though we’d left the chocks & sewer hose there for when we got back…… so…. we moved him on.