Trailer Life Stop #5: Grand Junction

The original plan in Grand Junction was to park the trailer in Sienna and Trevor’s backyard. That way, we would have water and power and access to indoor plumbing, but we could also have our own private space and wouldn’t be all up in their business all the time.

Sadly, despite heroic efforts, the alleyway behind the house was too narrow for the wide turning radius necessary to finagle the trailer in through the rear gate. Such is the curse of our temporary home: too small to be really comfortable, but too large to be easily moved around. We gave up and parked instead on the street in front of their house, then went inside and proceeded to soak up the surroundings like desiccated sponges. Space! Hot water! A furnace! A backyard with a dog door! A real kitchen! A couch with many pillows! Heaven!

ALL THE PILLOWS!!!

Luckily, S&T were out of town for a few days, so we had time to straighten up the house after the initial orgy of enjoying the totally mundane things that normal habitations have. After a brief debate on our options, it was decided (rather, I made a spousal decree) that we would take Sienna’s generous offer of their space room for the duration of the rotation, and I aspired to make us worthy of such generosity by doing as much of the dinner planning and cooking as possible, as well as keeping their dogs company while she was at work and Trevor was out of town.

Ah, the dogs. This was my main concern in staying at their house, besides being a nuisance, of course. Sienna’s puppy, Claudio, was 6 months old at the time, and had all the wonderful puppy qualities that Ellie finds terribly objectionable in her fellow canines. I was worried that she would try to eat him whenever they were in the same room, but they ended up getting used to each other within a few days, and by the end of our stay, they had even started to play together after a fashion (Claudio ran around in circles and did somersalts while Ellie stood there and barked at him).

Claudio and Cayman on their couch

Also, S&T frequently entertained visitors, who often brought their dogs, whom Ellie then tried to eat before eventually settling into a wary coexistence with them. She’s a real handful for a little 45-pound mutt.

Apart from the inconvenient dog issue, life was downright pleasant in the little house. Unfortunately for the person with lots of free time (me), Grand Junction had experienced a fairly significant snowstorm a week or so previous to our arrival, and the snow stubbornly persisted in keeping the trails from drying into rideable conditions for the first two weeks of our stay.

No-go.

Finally, on the second weekend, the Kokopelli trail system just west of Fruita was declared suitable by the local bike shop, so we loaded up the bikes and hurried thence at our first opportunity. As a matter of fact, we rode the Rustlers and Horsethief Bench loops there three days in a row, because that was all we had to ride, and mountain bikers get pretty cranky when we’ve been off our bikes for a few days, so it was much better than nothing. Luckily, Horsethief is a very entertaining trail, and it has a few challenging sections on which there is always opportunity to improve one’s riding technique. Like on this part:

The infamous Horsethief Bench drop-in.

The snow and mud were still refusing to budge from the excellent Lunch Loops trail system just south of downtown Junction, but it occurred to us that we could cheat the nasty conditions by getting out on our bikes at the crack of dawn, before the sun had a chance to make things squishy. And, because the trails were still mostly empty at that hour and we were shuttling a relatively short loop, we could bring the dogs along so that they could burn off some energy by chasing us – and the many bunnies that lived there – around. On one memorable foray, our party included more dogs than humans, and we must have been quite a sight for anyone watching our adventure.

Once the last holdouts of the snowstorm finally succumbed to the warm weather, we were able to branch out from Horsethief Bench onto the other trails in the Kokopelli system. I had my first taste of Mack Ridge and Moore Fun, two very rocky and challenging slices of singletrack on the western side of the area, which were made especially enjoyable by the good company:

Leigh and Tucker Dog on Mack Ridge

Sienna and Trevor on Moore Fun

On the fourth week of the stay in GJ, Sienna and I took a road trip together to Sedona to meet up with the ColoRowdies that were gathering there for the mountain bike festival, the VIDA skills workshop, and a Rowdie birthday celebration. An impressively large group convened in an open area out in the Forest Service land northwest of town on the Thursday evening before the festival, and Sienna and I rolled up to the campsite at one o’clock Saturday morning after a long drive down from Colorado. We grabbed a couple of hours of shut-eye, then proceeded to have a wonderful weekend of bikes and beer and friends, which you can read about in greater detail here.

The final week in GJ was a flurry of preparation: Mike had his case presentation that was PA school’s version of a master’s degree thesis defense, which was a necessary hurdle for him to clear in order to graduate in August; and I had the skills clinic that I had volunteered to put together for the Hurricane MTB Festival. Mike’s presentation went swimmingly, and my account of the adventure in Hurricane will follow in a separate post. In the meantime, here’s a photo of Claudio upside down:

When I returned from Utah, Mike and I repacked our worldly possessions back into the trailer and spent our travel week a few miles west of Junction, at the 18 Road trail system near Fruita. Happily, several folks joined us out there to camp and ride bikes for a few days before we had to make our way back to Idaho for the next rotation. We had such a good time that I completely forgot to take any photos. It was an ideal way to cap off our all-too-brief return to Colorado.