Day 45-46 – Glenwood Springs and Carbondale, CO – April 7th - April 8th, 2011

Jeep Odometer:  274900 km

Trip Odometer:  5690 miles

So after only 1 day of rest we were eager to get on the road again.  We headed for Carbondale, CO stopping in Glenwood Springs so Rose could check out the Vapour Caves.  Basically it’s like a natural sauna, I opted out as I had to keep my ear dry.  That afternoon we went to our Couchsurfing hostess’s place on the edge of Carbondale.  Jackie was a great hostess, she’s travelled a lot and we shared stories of travel , skiing and the outdoors.  We were hoping to see the Maroon Bells, but unfortunately we found out that the road was closed.  So we opted for another hike near Glenwood Springs, to hanging lake.  On the way there we were driving down a county round rounding a corner around 50 mph, when I see out of the corner of my eye a large black torpedo shoot off the top of my car and hit the guard railing.  I think to myself: “hmm I don’t remember arming the photon torpedos?”.  It was the new roof box that I just bought for this trip!  I quickly pulled over and then dragged it back over to the car.  Upon inspection, we could see that the cheap clamping mechanism failed, probably something to do with the fact that I had twice the rated load in the box, not much of a safety factor on that.  So we emptied it out, and managed to bend the clamps back so that we could clamp it to the car.  We headed into town where I bought some U-Bolts, duct tape, and epoxy.  I had to fix a few cracks in the top of the box, and I used the U-Bolts to properly secure the box, so we would not have a repeat of this ‘incident’.  I am hopeful that the box will last the duration of the trip. 

We eventually did get to our hike and then went out for beers with Jackie that evening to soak up some local flavour.  Carbondale is about a 30 min drive from Aspen so it’s primarily made up of people that work in Aspen but can’t afford to live there (who can).  We left the next morning and headed for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  On the way we got side tracked and hung with another Couch Surfer, Dan, he took us to the Pennies hot springs in Cold Creek just outside Carbondale.  It was a natural hot spring right on the side of the road for free!  These are the kinds of things you would never find with a guide book. 

FTF Day 45-46 Carbondale