Colorado!

Another new state for my map! It was a fairly quick trip from Dead Horse Point to Grand Junction, Colorado. Thirty seven years ago, when we were moving from NH to MA, we didn’t have a place to live, hadn’t sold our house and so couldn’t buy one. I got a summer job at Clara Barton Camp for Girls with Diabetes in Oxford, MA. The whole family moved into camp for the summer. I met a young nurse from the midwest who was just out for the summer and we struck up a friendship. I think she liked little three year old Tommy… Anyway, we’ve sort of stayed in touch, Kathleen was out for a few nursing conferences over the years and we would get together. Well, I found her again and knew we’d be in the area, thus our visit to Grand Junction. It was a crazy weekend for her, she and her mom had just moved the previous week, and she had just moved to a new office, and needed to get stuff organized. She is a DNP, has a doctorate and Nurse Practitioner, and has her own practice in GJ.

We camped at Colorado National Memorial on a mesa 1000 feet above the valley. It was an interesting ride up and down, Jim did them all. It was beautiful atop the mesa, quiet and peaceful. It also had no water or hookups, or showers. The lack of water in the desert would kill me. We packed every dirty thing we owned, including sheets, towels, sweatshirts, etc. and did three loads of wash at Kathleen’s, as well as taking showers on Friday night. She served a great dinner and we loved meeting her Mom, Jill, who is a great reader. We talked about books we loved and life. Jill is also a retired nurse and a camper. Kathleen, Jim and I had 37 years of stuff to catch up with.

Kathleen recommended we go to The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, to get out of the red rocks for a while. It was about an hour and a half from her home. Lovely park and good hikes. On a warm spring day this park was not crowded at all. We stopped in Montrose afterwards, had a nice dinner and walked around, then back up the mesa.

We had invited Kathleen and her Mom up for dinner for Mother’s Day, so we needed to shop. I went to Mass with Kathleen. It was a beautiful church with a vibrant, joyful group of parishioners. Jim went shopping. Afterwards we headed to Kathleen’s new office to help her to move furniture and get more settled, then we headed back to our campsite. When they got there, we took a ride to a few overlooks, then went back to our campsite for drinks, conversation and dinner. Jim made flank steak, green beans and salad. After dinner, our guests sadly left, and we took a walk and watched the sun set and the moon rise. It’s the end of our desert time, it’s been fun, but dry.