Gunnison

After we left our dispersed camping site, we decided to spend a few nights in a commercial campground, so that we could drain our tanks, fill up with fresh water, dispose of our trash, wash clothes and take a few long, hot showers. We were all disappointed when we drove into our campground though - the sites are so close together!  It was a stark contrast from our last campsite.  

On Monday we drove through the Currecanti National Recreation Area. The reservoir is the largest in Colorado. We took the jeep on a trail up to Rainbow Lake, then we drove into town to let the kids play at a super fun playground. We walked around town for a bit before we went to the local Pioneer Museum. 

On Tuesday we decided to drive up to Crystal Mill. When I was researching for our trip, I added the mill to our list of things to do (it's supposedly the most photographed place in Colorado), but I didn't research it beyond that. On Monday afternoon I checked our GPS and realized that we were only a couple of hours away (and it looked like this was the closest point to visit the mill while on our trip). So, Tuesday morning we drove up through Crested Butte (which looks like a fun ski town) and Gothic (which is a scientific research community) and up towards Crystal. The road started to get a lot rockier, and when we got to a river crossing, it started to rain and hail, so we decided to wait it out to make sure the water in the river didn't rise too much (the crossing was just below a water fall). A few minutes later 5 or 6 jeeps pulled up, and after talking for a bit, we all decided to cross. A few of the jeeps went on and the rest pulled over for a lunch break.  We decided to drive on, and possibly hike down the last part of the road, since several of the other jeep drivers told us the road was a bit rough. After we started down the mountain, we realized there wasn't a place for us to pull over and hike down. The road was very steep and narrow (no room for passing vehicles either). We finally made it to the mill (which was beautiful - even in the rain!), and decided to head to the town of Marble and drive out the "long way" back to Gunnison (many more miles but much quicker since it was all developed roads!). We stopped for a late lunch at a yummy restaurant in Marble (it was the only place to eat in a super small town - but the food was so delicious and fresh!). We felt like we needed to stop and decompress from the drive before we headed back. When we were almost back, and we finally had cell service again, I looked up the road we'd driven on. The scariest part is called the Devil's Punchbowl 😳. We never would have attempted it if we realized how crazy it was, but I guess all's well that ends well!  The lesson we learned is to do more homework and not to always trust the GPS!