We waved goodbye to Telluride on Monday morning, headed to Ouray.

Doug had told us about Ralph Lauren’s 16,000 acre Double RL Ranch in Ridgeway, between Telluride and Ouray, easily recognizable because of its aesthetic, rather than practical, fencing. So, as we were passing it this morning we decided to pull over at a scenic overlook alongside one of its sprawling pastures. I posed for some silly pictures, channeling my best inner Ralph Lauren or Polo model.

In Ouray we parked in the parking lot of the municipal hot springs we had soaked in a few days prior and began the Box Cañon hike. The Ouray Perimeter trail is perched on the rim of mountains that surround the valley floor where the town is located, and throughout the hike you hardly ever lose sight of the town below you.

As we started the climb, I was immediately regretting the heavy latte and scone that I had just consumed, and complained loudly and often to Scott who couldn’t hear me anyways since he was already several hundred meters ahead of me. And it was already quite hot, so as I sweated, I also complained about my choice of black shirt and pants, wishing I had opted for shorts instead.

Along the way, I stopped to greet a dog, and as the owner and I chatted, we noticed that she was staring at something in the woods across the river from us. The something turned out to be a big black bear, and it was remarkably, and somewhat concerningly, quite nimble on the terrain as it scaled up the incline in search of food.

I immediately started worrying about where Scott was since he would have been much closer to it and so I called him. When he answered he told me that he was on the bridge that crossed the first river, and he asked “Where the hell was I?” and I let him know that I was watching the bear that was much closer to him than me and to be careful.

When I finally reached him, he seemed rather unbothered about us continuing to march on along up the trail, toward where the bear just was. For the record, I was slightly bothered and rather nervous about the choice, which should come as zero surprise to anyone. But carry on we did, intentionally making lots of noise as we walked.

Eventually we reached the Box Cañon Falls that is formed as Canyon Creek squeezes its way forcefully through the narrow gorge, and we stopped to admire it from each of its angles. I was thankful to be inside the canyon since its shade provided respite from the sun. The flow from the creek was thunderous and it was hard to hear when we stood next to it. I commented that it reminded me of a smaller version of Pailón del Diablo (or the Devil’s Cauldron) in Baños, Ecuador, and Scott agreed.

When we had reached peak box canyon satiety, we continued along the trail to drop down into the town, as we had decided to take this way back rather than to retrace our steps, figuring it would be fun to see the downtown. When we arrived at the visitor center of the Falls, I spotted a shuttle provided by the town of Ouray and leapt on board, informing Scott that we would be taking this mode of transportation back to the car. He was surprisingly okay with the idea, and we got to see the town from the comfort of an air conditioned bus, and it dropped us off at the hot springs parking lot a few minutes later.

Our next stop was the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, located in Montrose, about an hour from Ouray. Once in Montrose, we stopped for lunch, reprovisioning, and a quick domestic dispute about how bagged ice should be handled.

Quick show of hands- Who here thinks you think you should break up the ice by throwing the bag down on the floor of the Walmart onto the dirty, and heavily trafficked, rug in front of the freezer?

What? No hands? Oh, that’s because you are all holding out for the second option, which is, “break it up by some other means” that doesn’t involve the bag touching the dirty rug that everyone else has walked on.

My OCD and lowkey germaphobia were TRIGGERED by this event and I had to do some deep breathing exercises to regain composure but eventually apologized, but emphasized that I wasn’t wrong about the questionable hygienics of this appalling act.

When I got my first glimpse of the canyon, the ice event was immediately forgotten.

I was only aware of this park because Scott has mentioned it over the years; as he and his family had visited it on one of their road trips, but had no idea what to expect. I am amazed that it is not more well known because my response to catching my first sight of the canyon was fairly similar to my response of seeing Tunnel View in Yosemite for the first time. Jaw dropping.

We spent a few hours driving the rim and getting out at various scenic overlooks. We were thankful to be visiting on a Monday once school had started back, as Scott said that during peak season it can be nearly impossible to park at some of the lookouts. Each view was better than the last, and I could have spent hours at each one just staring down into the canyon at the barely visible Gunnison river as it threaded and sliced its way between the soaring and ancient metamorphic rock wall faces that it itself had formed over the past two million years.

We made the obligatory stop at the Visitor’s Center, and while disappointed to learn that there was currently no informational film available to watch, I was still able to soak up all the information on the placards and various dioramas on display.

There was a threatening storm cloud shelf that appeared to be heading our way so we fast tracked our Visitor Center visit so that we could catch the best view in the park- the 2,250 foot vertical cliff known as the Painted Wall.

The wall, with its distinct zig-zagging pink stripes, was stunning to see, and a placard posted at the lookout informed us that the spire on top of the world’s tallest building, the 2,722 foot Burj Khalifa in Dubai, would just barely peek out over its rim. The Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building would be completely swallowed by the chasm here, unable to see over the edges unless standing on another building’s shoulders.

The threatening storm clouds thankfully passed, but we decided we should continue onwards anyways, since we needed to get to Buena Vista eventually that evening, about three hours away. I vetoed a stopover at Crested Butte because I knew it would be a long day even without that, and promised Scott that we could visit it on our next Colorado visit.

We took the Cottonwood Pass, the highest paved mountain pass crossing the Continental Divide in the US, to reach Buena Vista.

Our ears popped as we climbed and when we eventually reached the Divide, we got out for a quick hike up to the summit. The air was noticeably thinner up here which I became immediately, and unfortunately aware of, when I was inside the richly scented confines of the not-so-well attended to Porta-potty at the parking lot, which, I may add, is not somewhere you want to be having to take deep lung-filling breaths to satisfy your O₂ needs. I held my breath the best I could and threw open the door and burst out of there as soon as I could.

It was a short hike to the top, and it was chilly and windy up there! We marveled in the views around us at 12,320 feet before making our way back down to the car.

It was about another hour’s worth of driving before we finally reached Buena Vista and pulled into the parking lot of the Topaz Murder Lodge. It was a low slung, 1950’s motor lodge style dwelling, a few decades past its prime, and we would not have been surprised to learn it had probably been featured in an episode of Cops at some point in its past. We have been fairly lucky with my lodging picks over the years of travel we have done, my criteria for housing usually solid, but I was inevitably bound to pick a stinker at some point, and this was it.

I was thankful that Scott is such an agreeable travel companion so we laughed as we set our bags down in the turquoise bathtub, most likely installed in the Eisenhower era, so that we could first inspect the room for bedbugs. Seeing no evidence of the pests we decided it was safe to proceed, and moved the bags onto the dresser. We agreed that we would be fine since we were just staying a single night, but laughed as we passed well known chain hotels on our way to go check out the nearby Buena Vista Whitewater Park on the Arkansas River.

It was a lovely park and we saw what we could as the sun went down.

We decided on Mexican for dinner and found a nearby local spot with good reviews. Since it was late on a Monday we just about had the restaurant to ourselves and we engaged in a little conversation with our server and complimented our meals.

My charming personality must have won him over, because he brought me a shot of tequila, on the house, as a chaser for my Dos Equis. I accepted, reasoning that being murdered later that night in the Topaz Murder Lodge might go down a little smoother with a bit of a buzz.