RV trip, day 8: Colorado National Monument

This morning we drove just a few miles out of town to the Colorado National Monument and each snapped five or six dozen photos. I haven't had time to go through them all yet, but here are a few that convey some of the flavor of the place. The road around the park has plenty of places to pull the car off the road and gawk, some with fences and some without. In most cases, the road is within a few feet of a sheer cliff that drops down hundreds of feet. At one stop we pulled over behind an empty car, and there was no fence at the cliff's edge. I looked around and saw no one but Nancy and thought uh-oh. I called out—no reply. I noted the mileage and thought I'd mention it at the visitor's center at the other side of the park, but a couple of miles down the road we passed a runner who was keeping up a brisk pace. He must have been the car's owner, because nothing else was around for miles. 

There were a lot of cyclists powering their way up and down the hills—all half my age, I'll bet, though I never had that kind of strength and stamina at any age.

The park has a lot of trees like the one below, with gnarled trunks twisting over pieces of shale and looking as though they've already lived forever. I don't know what they are, but I'll call them junipers until someone corrects me.