The Ute Tribal Museum in Montrose, Colorado
Our next stop was the Ute Tribal Museum in Montrose, a two-hour stop in a museum full of meaningful information on Ute daily life, the long history of the Utes on this continent, and the shameful treatment they received at the hand of our government, cynically breaking treaties and steadily eroding Ute territorial holdings.
There are all kinds of educational segments using materials to give a hands-on understanding of how teepees were raised, for example, and how beading was accomplished.
There were weaponry displays and best of all, there were many short visual film segments on a variety of topics, including a 22-minute film on the Bear Dance, which was absolutely fascinating. They had a gift shop full of wonderful jewelry and art pieces, as well as the usual books and souvenirs.
The Ute Museum was one of the highlights of our trip. It came at just the right time, as we were still at the beginning of our trip, and could relate much of what we learned to what we saw along the way.
Montrose, Colorado and Starvin’ Arvins
One of the best parts of this trip were the people we met. We heard so many great stories, and we listened! Mother’s Day in Montrose, we ended up at Ted Laurence’s Steakhouse where I had a beautifully grilled salmon and my husband had soup and a big salad.
It was a good meal, but the best part was our waitress, Maria. We talked with Maria and discovered we had both lived in Monterey, CA. They had left a year ago; California was just too expensive, and rents, like everywhere, just kept going up. She and her husband are hard workers and took a chance that Montrose might give them an opportunity to save, buy their own house and maybe even start their own restaurant. She mentioned a restaurant where she meets up with friends once a week, Starvin’ Arvins. After looking at the planned route for the next day, we decided to give Starvin’ Arvins a try for breakfast the next day.
Back at our large, beautiful, and very empty B&B, we slept fitfully and were happy to pack up and leave the next morning. We never saw or had any contact with management other than the message giving us our entry codes.
We headed back into Montrose for breakfast and gas. Starvin’ Arvins was definitely the place to be.
They had a menu that was a hungry man’s dream, with all the usual suspects, but we went with Cat’s Head biscuits, a huge cinnamon roll, and the oatmeal came with a huge bowl of blueberries.
We were lucky to get there when we did; the place filled up quickly.
Service was fast and friendly; once again we had a wonderful waitress who took really good care of us and carefully boxed one of the gigantic cinnamon rolls to take with us – it will last for several days, and will be happily dunked in my coffee if it gets a little stale.
(We were never able to finish the cinnamon roll, it was so huge.)
As we are leaving, here is our view to the South.
The Old School Lodge
Our first goal when we get to Montrose is to find where we are staying, not that hard because I use Google Maps. Just about when we get there, we get a text with the combination that will let us in the front door and the combination to our room. Nothing about this is odd; we have done this before.
The place is beautiful. It was an old schoolhouse, and the former auditorium is a grand room with tables, while the guest rooms are off in hallways and up stairs.
This was the only welcome we got.
Everything was immaculate, comfortable and beautifully kept. There must be eight to ten guest rooms. We were the only ones there. We never received any kind of greeting, other than the combination. There were no other guests. As beautiful as the place was, it felt creepy, and we will never stay there again.
Four Corners: Hiking and Petroglyphs
I used to be such a good blogger. I’d take a trip, or have an interesting experience, and I would sit right down and write all about it. It took me a couple months to write up the Barcelona to Abu Dhabi Trip and now – it is August, and I am just now getting to May in Colorado. The focus of this trip is family and hiking, and the map is below:
We love flying into Denver; my niece, Little Diamond (now Professor Little Diamond 😊 ) lives there with her twins and husband-soon-to-be. More and more we choose to rent with Hertz; they have a special relationship with our insurance company and we get good deals. This time, we rolled in and they said “pick any car in this row” so we chose a beautiful cadet blue Suburu Forester.
After an evening of family fun, we headed out early next morning for Montrose, CO, and took a beautiful drive with snow and the early signs of Spring through Ute territory. You’ll see a map of all of that later – it’s astounding.
We’re having a lot of fun with the Subaru; it drives great but we are having to get used to the motor turning off every time we stop. It starts up quickly enough when we press the gas, but it is unnerving at first. I also was confused about what the temperature was; it went through wild fluctuations until I discovered that what I thought was the temperature gauge was in fact the miles-per-hour reading.
It’s a mixed kind of day for our first drive, lots of sunshine, but also enough clouds to give us some drama, once even a brief snowstorm, and stunning contrasts between late winter and the first signs of Spring as we roll along. All in all, it’s a glorious day.
We arrive in Gunnison at lunch time – a great Western Town.
We chose the W Cafe because, as you can see on the sign, this is where the locals eat. It’s Mother’s Day and we got here just in time before the after-church crowd arrives. I asked the cashier if I could take her photo. I thought the owner of this cafe showed genius. All the waitresses were local. They were all pretty, and they all knew all the people who came in. No wonder this is where the locals eat! The food was pretty good, too. We didn’t expect a lot of salad and/or vegetables out here in hiking country, but to our surprise, we were able to find them with almost every meal.
We head on from Gunnison to Montrose, where we have reservations at a B&B. The scenery makes a dramatic change.
These are the Collegiate Mountains.
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