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  Salida, Colorado, United States
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

After we left Guernsey State Park this morning, we headed for a spot where you can see ruts from the Oregon Trail in the ground.  They're carved a foot deep into solid rock from all the iron shod wagon wheels that took that exact same trail west.  There had to be so many wagons to do that. PHOTO_ID_R=fort-laramie.jpg] From there, we went to a place called the Register Wall.  People on their way west would carve their names into the side of a bluff.  Unfortunately, modern day people have defaced it with their own names, graffiti, and other junk.  Its really too bad.  After that, we stopped at Fort Laramie.  It wasnt quite what I expected, no wall around the fort or anything.  There were a few buildings around, and a cannon.

After that, we spent the rest of the day driving.  We'd gotten in contact with the other guys that were supposed to go on the rafting trip, and decided to meet up in Colorado and do some day trips on a couple rivers that they'd done in the past

Fort Laramie

.  So we drove through Cheyenne, Wyoming down to Denver, and up into the mountains to Buena Vista.  When we got there, we had to wait for the guys to get off the river.  There were 6 of them; Bill, Tim, Paul, John, Chris, and Dick.  Once they showed up, we headed over to Salida to get some dinner, then checked into a Holiday Inn for the night.

The next day, we drove over to downtown Salida, checked out a couple kayaking stores, then got on the river.  First I tried out a sit-on-top kayak.  That didn't go so well.  I made it across the river once, eddied out, and started to go again.  Then I promptly wiped out.  And damn was that water cold!  I was only wearing a drysuit top and swim trunks.  I ran the kayak down a little ways, flipped a couple more times, and decided that I should probably be using the inflatable kayak they'd brought.  Its about 12 feet by 2 feet, and super stable.  We pumped it up, and then set off down river.  It wasnt the most easily manueverable craft, but at least I wasnt falling out every ten seconds!  We did a 5 mile trip for the day, just to have some fun.  It may only have been 5 miles, but it sure did a number on my shoulders and abs.

After we got off the river, we headed west over the Continental Divide (11,000 ft pass), and down to Gunnison.  They'd set up some reservations at a campground in Gunnison State Park.  The Taylor River runs through it, and we'd decided to run that the next day.  We had some freeze-dried sweet and sour pork with rice for dinner.  It was surprisingly good!  After that, the guys sat around the fire talking about past trips they'd taken, and I just pretty much listened to the stories, drinking a few beers. 

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