CALIENTE THIS MORNING

Yes, we are about an hour drive from Florence and hope to get there before it warms up too much.  We ended up making a longer drive yesterday than planned as the RV park we were headed for is no longer an RV park but has converted to mostly park models.
We had a great visit to Canyon de Chelly at Chinle, AZ.  We set up in Cottonwood Campground after a two hour drive from overnighting in Bluff, UT then drove the south rim Saturday afternoon/evening.  We drove the north rim yesterday morning then hooked up and headed south by 10:30 am.  I will include a few photos from Canyon de Chelly with more to come when we get online in Caliente.  Temperature is forecast to be 87F today dropping to mid 80s the rest of the week.
We had a great time in Clifton/Grand Junction and it was hard to pry ourselves away from all the card games and friendship.

Antelope House Ruins North Rim drive Canyon de Chelly

Near Spider Rock Canyon de Chelly 

South Rim drive

800 foot tall Spider Rock, an amazing place

HANGING OUT IN CLIFTON, CO

Yes, we're still here in Clifton, two weeks today since we arrived and the time has flown by.  I've done a bit more travelling around looking for caches and photos.  We've had several joint meals with our many friends and some great card games.  Aileen and I are enjoying playing Hand and Foot.
Our hosts just returned a few minutes ago from their road trip to Oregon and Washington.  Its good to see them again.  Aileen put a roast in the crock pot this morning so supper is ready to take in to the house after they've had time to settle in and unwind.
Our current plan is to head on down the road Friday morning with Bluff, UT our first night destination.  If the weather behaves, we will got to Chinle, AZ the next day and tour Canyon de Chelly which we've never seen.  We will go as far as ShowLow, AZ the third day and then have a half day drive to Florence on October 31.  We'll see if we manage to stick to that.

In the tiny community of Mesa, CO I spotted this old house.  That's Grand Mesa towering in the background.

A closer view

These two images were out along the DeBeque Cutoff Road.  I picked up a few caches in this area and most of them required an energetic hike up on to rock bluffs or cliffs.

Mt. Garfield and the Bookcliffs at Clifton, CO taken from the side of I-70 freeway.

Another shot of the multi-coloured hills along the DeBeque Cutoff.

Looking down into the Colorado River Valley and I-70 corridor at DeBeque about 24 miles east of Clifton.

PART ONE OF A TWO PART CACHE

Please scroll down below this post to see the first part of today's post.

Saturday night seven couples of us gathered at Ernie and Atha's for supper and cards.  We had a great evening.

I drive by this vineyard often and the morning light was irresistible 

This Chipmunk was was nearly 10,500 feet elevation

On my way up to Grand Mesa on Monday

Every road you see is part of the single road to the top of Grand Mesa.  With photos and geocaches, it took me three hours to get to the top.

The top

Looking back at the road system from along the rim

Looking NE

And SW, note the car for scale

Across part of the mesa

Heading down the other side on a paved road.  The leaves are long gone here.

Nearing the community of Collbran, CO

I spotted this Bighorn Sheep ram yesterday as I was heading up Hwy 141

Is this the original longneck?

Can you find the longneck on the cliff face?

Scroll sown for the rest of this post

THERE BE THIEVES AMONG US!

Yes, sadly we have experienced the evil.  Some low life stole my bike from beside the motor home and house yesterday while I was wandering and Aileen was playing cards with a group of ladies.  Incidentally, Aileen was the winner at her table playing Sets.  The frustrating part was that my new bike helmet was in the basket and my pump was strapped to the frame.  It also had new tires and run flat tubes.  I will have to go shopping when we get to Florence.  Guess I should have put the lock on it.  I had it under the bedroom slide out but the neighbour's sprinklers were getting the seat and helmet wet so I moved it.
We have only missed a couple of nights playing cards and I think we won't play again until Friday now.  We've had lots of wind since we've been here.
On Monday, I drove up Lands End Road onto Grand Mesa.  Boy was it cool up there!  9C with a wind so strong at times it just about blew you over.  I had to be careful near the edge.  I did some geocaching but had to give it up eventually as I was running out of time.  I was about eight hours away and drove 160kms  (100 miles).   With more photography than caching, I only got fourteen caches.
Yesterday, I spent another eight hours out and only put on half that distance.  I did several geocaches that were far off the road.  The first four caches took 1.5 hours and the one on Ruby Butte was good for at least another hour.   Again photography trumped geocaching and I only picked up ten caches.

Out along Hwy 141 southeast of Grand Junction there were small pockets of Cottonwood or Aspens showing their fall colour

Ruby Butte

Tortured Juniper

There's a geocache at the base of these interesting rocks that are at least twelve feet high

An old Pine skeleton at the base of Ruby Butte

Lots of interesting Lichen on the shaded side of the rocks

A view down in to the Grand Valley east of Whitewater

That's an old granite mine on the edge of the cliff.  You can see some of the castoffs down at the base.  I had climbed up to the granite scree looking for a cache that turned out to be up here on top.  I reached it by driving up a forestry road with several switchbacks.

Looking the other way toward Gateway, CO

More of the granite mine on the cliff edge

Ruby Butte in its entirety.  I parked at the road on the right and the geocache was in those tiny rocks just to the left of the Butte.  

These two images are along Hwy 50 just east of Grand Junction, CO

GEOCACHING AND PHOTOGRAPHY GO TOGETHER

Although the light wasn't suitable for long distance images yesterday morning, I decided to go geocaching and see what the day became.  As it turned out, it was great!   I did find 17 geocaches but mostly photography won out.  For me, photography trumps geocaching every time!  You can geocache anytime but you need good lighting for photography.  Basically, these photos were found/taken as I wandered from cache to cache.  Sometimes it took quite a while to get to the next cache.
We played Hand and Foot again last night.  Vern and Charlene joined Jim, Judy and us.  Playing guys against girls, the guys won.  We've played cards of some type every night since we arrived.  We are going to Ernie and Atha's for supper tonight.  There will be several other couples attending and we expect there will be a card game after.

I presume the light coloured bison are beefalo

I finally got out to do some geocaching and picked the Kannah Creek Valley to start

The major leaf drop had already happened in this area but I was able to find isolated pockets of colour here and there

Looking up to Grand Mesa from Lands End Road

As you can see, not many leaves left!  I was taken with the wandering yellow line.

The Shrubby Oak were particularly vibrant along the Lands End Road at about 7,000 feet elevation

Looking down the Reeder Mesa Road toward Whitewater, a small community east of  Grand Junction, CO

Views along Reeder Mesa Road