2017 -Colorado, from Utah to Paonia

Here in Southern Utah this summer is super hot. Being a temperature freak I register the top and bottom temperatures every day for 7 years. And they are rising… So to get some relief from this heat we did our usual once a week big irrigation, arranged some friends to irrigate sensitive areas and tomatoes in between the week and left for a 6 day trip towards the Colorado mountains. It is not a short trip. It took us a day and a half to get to the first views of them. As we left after 4pmᅡᅠ – we reached Calf Creek campground just a little East from Escalante town close to the sunset. On the way we checked if there are vacancies in Escalante motels, there were. Because usually the Calf Creek campground is full. This time it wasn’t, plenty of beautiful places with the creek making its soothing sound all through the quiet night. Yes, it was a hot day, a hot night, but bearably hot. So funnyᅡᅠ -I am taking out our sleeping bags and all from the tent-ᅡᅠ and the bottom of it where the mattresses were is hot! Here is our campground: The next day the driving was beautiful – again on Rt 12 -the very scenic Utah route, we passed through Boulder with its bird paradise lake, walked by it for a little rest:and then through Capitol Reef NP to Green River where everybody refuels and has lunch and further to Grand Junction. All the time temperatures outside were soaringᅡᅠ -up to 107F. So we didn’t even stop in any store , anywhere on our way except when we got to a cute town Hotchkiss. A book store with sculptures in front of it caught my attention:Because we were already tired, we stopped at the first motel that was on our way, Hotchkiss Lodge: It was a motel with breakfast, all clean, welcoming and owned by a Polish couple. There I looked that they are already have views of lower mountains. And the night there was already not hot at all, alas! The next day we drove towards Crested Butte via a small town Paonia and were stunned to see that some new Gaudi is living there:ᅡᅠ There are creative people all over, not only in clusters, and that made me happy! There were also different kind of collections of transportation or agriculture devices: And so we proceeded towards Crested Butte, where the Wild flower festival was expected.