Grand Junction
Oct 2020
Our final destination in Colorado was Grand Junction. We had noticed a train in Georgetown on our way from Vail to Denver and we decided we’d break up the trip from Denver to Georgetown by taking the kids on a ride. Most of the kids ended up taking a nap on the train ride, but it was a good break none-the-less.
Grand Junction is right on the border of the Colorado-Utah border and the Colorado Monument. We decided to stop here before heading to Utah because the AllTrails app was littered with easy hikes here. AllTrails is another app we use to help determine our home base for Airbnbs. You can filter the hikes for easy/moderate/difficult and length as well as a number of different criteria.
Given an easy and short criteria and there are a whopping 30 hikes in the Grand Junction area.
We booked this location late and there aren’t a lot of Airbnbs available it seemed. But we did find a home within a 30 minute walk of Canyon View Park. This is hands down the best park/playground we have been to in the U.S. It comes close to compete with the Swiss playgrounds among the Jungfrau mountain ranges. We visited this park every day we were in Grand Junction. There’s also a bakery with cupcakes right next door - perfect!
While in Grand Junction we did get to hike a couple of trails - Otto’s Trail and Devil’s Kitchen Trail.
Otto’s Trail is one of the easier, top-ranked trails in the area and rather short. Our kiddos managed very easily walking it, while Pax rode in the child carrier in the more dangerous spots. (Pax did get some time to roll on the ground in the dirt, though). This trail did make us quite nervous on parts especially towards the end. But as long as your kids are within arm’s reach it is safe.
Devil’s Kitchen is listed on AllTrails as moderate, but we were up for a little challenge and were excited to see some of the views. This is also a top-ranked trail in the area. It’s actually pretty easy until you get to the end and there’s a steep chase to get to the “kitchen”. Our kiddos loved it though and again it was safe for the kids as long as we kept them close to us.
Dinosaur Monument
Our next stop after Grand Junction was Orem, Utah (basically Provo) and we decided to take a route through Dinosaur, Colorado so that we could see the Quarry Exhibit Hall located at the Dinosaur National Monument. I mean who doesn’t take their kids through a town named Dinosaur? It was a very quick stop. We took the bus from the visitor center to the quarry, checked out the preserved dinosaur fossils in the bedrock, and then hiked the Fossil Discovery Trail back to our van.
About three hours later we arrived in Orem, Utah!