Carbondale and Fruita Colorado

Carbondale had nice bike/walking path to Aspen (30 miles South). We didn't bike that far. 😁

Carbondale is a beautiful little town at an elevation of 6200'. It's 30 miles north of Aspen and next to both the Colorado River and the Roaring Fork River that flows into the Colorado. We spent the first night boondocking in municipal parking area and moved over to our rv site the next day. Weather was great with each day highs of low 80's and nights in the mid 50's. This is an recreational persons paradise with many trails and bike paths that lead from Carbondale to Aspen. Surrounded by mountains, the biggest is Mt Sopris with an elevation of 13,000'. The one thing I haven't talked about is breathing at the higher altitudes. It has taken awhile to get acclimated to the higher altitude and have noticed getting tired quicker. We have been at the higher altitudes since Vedauwoo, Colorado (7500') about 2 weeks ago but still feel the affects. Funny, by the time we get used to it we'll be on the California coast.

Couple highlights were going to Aspen and taking a rafting trip down the Colorado. For Aspen, as Kami likes to say....Hoity Toity place for the rich and famous, it was busy with tourists. All the shops were top dollar (didn't expect any less, did you?) and skiing is literally right next to the town so you can take the chair lift up to ski down and swing by the store to get your accessories. 😏 It was a nice place to visit and see how the other half live and let me say they live very well. The one thing I have to mention was the amount of plastic surgery we saw. Kami made me laugh when she said you could see the woman's lips coming around the corner before their boobies. 😜 Most of these women were in their 50's +.

Took a rafting trip down the Colorado July 4th. I wanted to go down the class lV and V rapids but Kami would have nothing to do with that so we took the easier trip down class ll and lll. It was a 90 minute trip and enjoyable. Ended up getting wet several times so I guess there were of couple of class lV's sprinkled in. 😜

Up top, rafting down the Colorado. To the right, campsite in background of river.

Fruita is on the western slope of Colorado (literally 10 miles from Utah boarder). Stayed at another state campground at the foot of the Colorado Monument (which I was not familiar with but was beautiful). Again, I have to say the state park was fantastic with laundry service and full hook ups. They even have a sprinkler system for the GREEN grass around your site. I wanted to mention this because each town/city that is close to the Colorado River uses the river water for EVERYTHING. As we drove into Fruita the climate is dry and arid but as we came up to the town, there were trees, lush grass and growing fields. I wanted to bring this up because we have heard from news reports that the Colorado River is continually getting lower. This is a combination of lack of snow fall and over usage of the river resource. They have warned about this for the past 20 years and asked towns/cities to start conserving water. I guess it fell on deaf ears.

The Colorado Monument (National State Park) has beautiful peaks and valleys. The feds did a nice job with the road that travels thru Monument. One more point I would like to make about National Parks. They are a treasure for the public to go, see, and enjoy. I can appreciate the preservation of our land for generations to come to enjoy. Lastly, bought the one year National Park pass for $80 and have already gotten a return on investment. Each National Park is $30 per car to get in. So far, we have been to 5 parks with more to come.