Gunnison, Colorado

Today captured the true spirit of my adventure as I had originally conceived it more than a year ago when I left Florida. I wanted to experience travel through activity, to understand a place by feeling it under my feet, being immersed energetically. Every city or town or area has character the same way a person does, and its true nature can be evoked in the same way that one connects to anything else. For some that may be religion or companionship. For me it has always been by moving.

Town of Gunnison

For many runners, running is their religion. Only through this repetitive motion does a runner feel centered, at peace and connected to their family, friends, community and universe. I feel this way when running, but also when hiking or biking - essentially by moving in nature - and it is how I connect best with everything and everybody in life.

I've done a lot of hiking in the past year, very little biking, and running essentially to keep in shape; a fragmented way of moving through travel, and not ideal.

I arrived in Gunnison this morning around 10:00am after stopping two hours short last night at the top of a mountain pass outside Denver. I had planned to stay in the city but failed to get off the highway before it turned up the mountain. 

Blue Mesa Reservoir

The best way to see a new town or city is to run through it, but instead I grabbed my bike and rode the 2.5 miles into town. Without a car I was able to stop and see anything that might be of interest, including the River Festival, which from what I saw consisted of some balloons tied to the bridge that crossed the river. Where I come from a festival has tents, beer and questionable characters, but I guess a mother with a baby stroller on a bridge with balloons can be joyous as well.

Blue Mesa Reservoir

About 10 miles West of town in the Blue Mesa Reservoir / Lake. Twenty miles long and with over 100 miles of shoreline, it is the largest body of water in Colorado. Mountains and beach - I knew I picked the right place! Katie and I walked down the beach and she gravitated to the water like she never has before. Although half-way back from our walk she was tired and I had to carry her the rest of the way. It couldn't have been more than a mile but I suppose it was hot...

Katie loves the water here!

I had so much fun on my bike in the morning, I went for another ride in the afternoon on a side dirt road close to the campground. Riding along, I came to a cattle fence. I don't know what else to call it, but I've only seen them in the West. It's up or down, depending on where they want their cattle I guess. Anyway, I felt a little weird crossing it because it looked like private property (though it was not marked as such),  and when I turned my head I saw a trail, up a hill, leading up to a bigger hill, marked as public land for multi-use. Now these are the same kind of hills I saw in New Mexico - no trees; no trail required - you could just walk up to the top without getting lost or bushwhacking. Everytime I see one, I want to go climb it, but of course I don't because I rely on Google to find trailheads.

Trail up the hill -- the bigger one to the right is where it goes

But today was no ordinary day so I locked up my bike on a nearby fence and I climbed it, or part of it anyway, since I only had a quarter of a bottle of water left and it looked pretty long and it was hot. Then I ran back down the trail, mostly because walking down is boring, but nonetheless I completed the trifecta of endurance travel, and in a spontaneous fashion even.

View from the top of the first mini-hill

My life rocks.