Finishing Our "Triathlon"

We came to the area around Gunnison because we had never visited here before, and we stayed at Blue Mesa Recreation Ranch because it was free.  It’s a membership park that offers 3 free nights in their campground in exchange for listening to their sales pitch.  Perhaps we will invest in a camping membership at some point, but it wasn’t today.  

In the 3 days we have been in the area, we have biked (in Crested Butte), hiked (into the Black Canyon), so all we lacked in our triathlon events was the water portion.  Actually, Denisa hit the water at the nice pool at the RV resort, but that didn’t count.   

We needed some kayak time on Blue Mesa Lake!  At 20 miles long with 94 miles of shoreline, it is the largest lake in Colorado.  We also found it to be clear and deep, and a beautiful lake for kayaking.  It’s as blue in person as the pictures we had seen.

Because we didn’t purchase the membership plan, we had to be out of our space the third morning.  So we parked the motor home at the lake’s visitor center, and drove the car to a lake access spot at the neck of Soap Creek Arm.  We have learned that we enjoy kayaking little inlets more than the main body of large lakes.  But this lake was so big that even the “little inlets” were a mile across.

We just talked about the fact that we hadn’t seen any birds on the lake, when Mark spotted a Mother duck and her 7 little ducklings.  They were so cute, but impossible to photograph in the shadows at the edge of the lake.  Then we found a pair of geese and their five adolescent goslings.

They let us get very near to take pictures, and we were especially entertained by the fifth gosling that was always last in line because he was so busy eating.

We followed the goose parade as they led us towards the mountains in front of us.

The peaks at the end of the inlet made a very pretty focal point to row towards.  It’s hard to capture the grandeur of these great mountains.  But if you look carefully in the left hand quarter of the picture, you can see a tiny white box on the shore.  That tiny box would be a full-size motor home, dwarfed by another of God’s wonders.

After a nice float on a beautiful weather morning, we had completed the last event of our "triathlon."  We have biked, hiked and kayaked this area of Colorado, so it is time to head down the road.  We returned to the visitor center to pick up our motor home and headed to our next destination—Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.