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