This summer's travel season finds me once again enjoying friends, family, and natural beauty. After several years of casually nodding 'yes' to Susan's repeated invitation to "come and visit us in Grand Junction," we finally got out our calendars and made a plan. What a concept! Write it Down, Make it Happen like the book says.
Shortly after touching down in Grand Junction, Susan was whisking me off to nearby Colorado National Monument. We drove the Rim Rock Drive, stopping at the Visitor's Center to walk along the path.
This was as close to the edge as I was comfortable. I find such immense space and sheer drops unnerving, to say the least.
Preservation & development of this natural wonder is due to the passion & perseverance of John Otto, who labored for decades creating trails, roads, and lobbying the federal government for the preservation of this glorious landscape.
Healthy, and not so healthy, meals in gorgeous places are easy to come by in this lovely city. As are places to walk, hike, bike, and play outside. Truly, a model city for the rest of the country.
The Serpent's Trail is the easy trail that many
people hike before going to work.
Just when I was thinking that Grand Junction is all desert and rock, Susan & Wayne took me to the Grand Mesa National Forest.
This is my kind of landscape: lush, oxygen rich green foliage, tall pine trees, and running water. As much as the immensity and hardness of the rock landscape unnerves me the softness and closeness of a forest landscape comforts me.
Wayne & Susan treated me to a day of lakeside hikes, homemade blueberry pie, and gorgeous overlooks at Land's End. Truly a heavenly day that I'll always remember.
On the blog, I tend not to talk about deep, inner feelings since those are both too personal to share and not of real interest to others, who have their own inner lives to contemplate. However, my five days spent with Susan & Wayne illustrate what a beautiful, shared life true partners can make. Early on they chose to create lives living and working in natural beauty and in the process have helped others in innumerable ways.
In addition, Susan's Sacred Center work as an interfaith minister and counselor has brought comfort, joy, and understanding to an untold number of people. It was a pleasure spending time with such positive, healthy, and creative people. Thanks, Susan & Wayne.
P.S. I tried to be a really good guest so I can come back again and enjoy their lives and their city.
2 comments:
Great pics and descriptions! I've never been there, but now have added it to my "want to go there" list! Thanks for sharing!
Just went through GJ on Amtrak and was delightfully amazed by the variety of beauty - nearby mountains and forests, orchards and vinyards, canyonland. Have begun discussing it for retirement.
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