Thanksgiving in Grand Junction

We spent Thanksgiving in Grand Junction with Heather, Chris, and Cailan. We drove from our side of mountains to theirs on Wednesday, setting a record slow travel time of 6 hours and 30-something minutes. It seemed that everyone was leaving Denver that day. I was concerned that H&C would not have enough turkey. We didn't get to GJ much before sunset, so we spent a little time in the park across the street, ate some burritos, watched Edward Scissorhands, and went to bed.

The next morning, we eased into Thanksgiving Day in H&C's kitchen, sipping coffee and waiting for the sun. Once we had that, we made a short drive to the Palisade Rim trail to stretch our legs, our kids, and our dogs. It was a nice trail. I enjoy a rim trail that has minimal frightening exposure.

Surprisingly, we were not the first people to follow the rim into this valley. It appeared that the previous visitors had tallied their kills on the rocks.

A beautiful view, with Grand Junction in the background.

And I-70 snaking through the valley below.

After our hike, we went back to H&C's for a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat. Sharon had traveled with us, and Bobbie came over for dinner, so they had a full house. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, and rolls with pumpkin pie and apple pie for desert. It was pretty much the traditional fare, and quite delicious. We went to bed early.

We had to pack a lot into the Friday after Thanksgiving, but most importantly we wanted to get in a little more desert trail time. Leaving the dogs at home, we piled into our Armada (wanted to try it with seven people) and headed for the Devil's Kitchen in the Colorado Monument, hoping for another Thanksgiving dinner and maybe a desert dessert, prepared by the Devil himself. But he was nowhere to be found.

It's a short hike up the trail to some nice scrambling in his kitchen. That's Cailan in the red jacket, dwarfed by the Devil's boulders.

Yes, it looks like Abbey and Quinn are hugging, but they were actually trying to squeeze really hard and see whose lungs would pop out first.

Quinn is also dwarfed by the Devil's boulders.

Abbey focuses on friction.

We spent a few hours exploring the sandstone kitchen and climbing around on the nearby rock formations, and eventually headed back to H&C's for a quick pizza lunch before packing up and driving to Vail, where Abbey's boy's family has a condo. They served us a nice pasta dinner, and then we spent a couple hours hanging around talking, embarrassing our children, before we headed for home. Abbey stayed with them in Vail for the rest of the weekend.