Colorado National Monument – Fruita, Colorado

We took advantage of cooler weather Thursday (8/01/19) afternoon to visit Colorado National Monument. I was excited to see a tunnel cut right through the mountain. It was awesome driving through the mountain. What a great tunnel! There were actually three tunnels but I only snagged photos of one of them. You get the idea. They were fun to drive through.

Do you remember our rock formation lesson from Arches National Park? Here’s another balanced rock. It looks like a strong wind would just knock it right off.

We are having fun collecting Junior Ranger badges on this adventure! I think I might have mentioned in a previous post, that RV life has really slowed down our pace of life. We are slow. We are really really slow. It takes us a long time to do a Junior Ranger workbook. We are usually unable to complete the workbook in one visit. So, on our first visit (8/01/19) we picked up the kids workbooks. On our 2nd visit (8/10/19), we went the long way around for a scenic drive with overlooks. We went on 2 very short “walks” aka “hikes”, and the kids got their Junior Ranger badges.

The kiddos admired this little lizard and named him Oscar, from the show Oscar’s Oasis. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this program as it has absolutely no educational or moral value whatsoever. It’s a modern version of The Looney Tunes: Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. This little lizard was sticking his tongue out at us. The kiddos thought it was so funny!

At Grand View overlook, I overheard a great conversation:

Three men in unison: Wow!

Dad: Now do you see why I wanted to do this?

Teenage son #1: That was the best one yet.

Teenage son #2: (laughing) The last one we saw was the best one yet, until we just now saw this one.

Teenage son #1: Well let’s go see the next one!

*panoramic photo by E

We ended our trip with a 0.25 mile “walk”, in the high noon sun, to Wedding Overlook. Then we headed back into the Visitor Center for Junior Ranger badges!

We hope this post inspires you to travel somewhere new with your family. The next thing you see together may be “the best one yet”!

🏞 Where is your favorite view? Maybe we will visit it sometime soon!

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