Grand Mesa

After the disappointment of being early for the color, then rain and not being able to get to the spots that we were planning on we got up at dark-thirty and were headed over to get some sunrise shots, but first we headed to McDonald's for breakfast.  While we were waiting for our food an older gentleman was ordering and said something funny that went right over the head of the poor young lady helping him...of course I got it and giggled.  He looked over at us and grinned really big.  We got our food and headed over to the table, about a minute later here comes this gentleman and asks if he can join us!  Well of course we said yes and he sat down, next thing we know his wife joined us as well!  We ended up spending a little over an hour chatting with them (of course this meant we didn't get any sunrise shots!)  They were a wonderful couple and we enjoyed the visit.

We went to where we had planned to take pictures that morning and once again couldn't get to the spot - we decided you really need a four-wheel drive to take pictures in Colorado!

Sooooo, we looked over our map and decided since we had missed the early shooting AND our preferred spot we would drive over to Grand Mesa and try there...it didn't look to far away and we had heard it was beautiful, so off we went. 

Here are the photos from that little trip.

On our way we stopped at this little pond, it was so pretty!

Couldn't believe there was SNOW!

And FINALLY some COLOR!

These leaves looked so pretty against the darker background.

Conifer with snow and brightly colored aspen make a great combination.

Views from Grand Mesa

The other side of the turnout.

As the sun began to dip to the horizon the mists began to rise below.

We headed toward home.  When we got to the highway our GPS was telling us to go back to Grand Junction and then head around to Gunnison, but we could tell by looking at the little map that it was closer to go the other way.  We couldn't figure out why it wanted us to go this long circuitous route.  Well - we obviously knew best so we turned left instead of right and ignored the GPS.  Well, we found out why pretty quickly.  The sun went down and it was pitch black...there were no other cars on the road very quickly and all of a sudden the picture on the GPS became this serpentine line with curves turning in on themselves like you wouldn't believe!  We would come to a curve and our headlights would be shining out over the tops of trees with nothing between us and the dropoff but a very small guardrail!  I watched the  GPS screen and would call out the turns to Pepaw while he watched the road. Curve right coming up, now curve left, WHOA...here comes a tight right! Can I say SCARY!  We were so glad to get to the intersection with the highway back to Gunnison at the bottom of the mountain!  

We were very glad we went to Grand Mesa, but we did decide that next time we would pay more attention to the GPS!