Megan’s Take
Today was more of a low-key travel day. We slept in until about 7:45 am, so we must have really needed the extra sleep. We hiked a fairly easy 1 mile trail on Dinosaur Hill near our campground. It was a well-maintained trail with good views of the surrounding valleys, and there was some historical information about a dinosaur excavated from the site.
After that, we hooked up the camper and headed to the Western Colorado Botanical Garden. It was very small and not well-kept. The kids enjoyed seeing turtles and following the paths, but I would not recommend it.
My highlight of the day was visiting the Grand Junction Gem and Mineral Club during their “open shop” time at their lapidary building. Members are there to use the equipment in the shop, and visitors are welcome to check it out. One of the members showed us around the inside of their shop, and then there was a scrap pile out back that we could hunt around in.
People must have been dumping all their extra rocks here for a long time, because there was so much and such an incredible variety.
One man’s trash is another man’s trash. I can’t believe what people dumped there – lots of treasures and specimens of rocks that we haven’t come across during our personal rock hunting adventures. We found some great fossils for Emilia, like a full trilobite, from the “rock pond”, which she was very excited about. She has become particularly interested in fossils lately. It was cool to see what people have collected over the years and what they dumped as their “extras” outside the shop.
From there, we headed to the Glenwood Springs KOA and settled at the campground for the afternoon. There is a playground, splash pad, and pool, and the kids wanted to do it all.
They’re very excited about our new campground, and Emilia said two bedtimes is not enough to stay here.
Phil’s Take
She covered the day pretty well and I don’t have much to add. The scenery on the drive was nice and the highlight was definitely the rock hounding club. It’ll be an early morning to see some beautiful sights tomorrow.
Here’s the pictures from today.
