Colorado National Monument

otomola
Oct 27, 2022
10 min read

Updated: Jun 29

October 22-26

It was a nice day for a drive. It was not too cold, not too warm. The weather was definitely better than the weather I had driving across the mountains in October 2021. It was warmer this time, and it was precipitation free. I arrived at the rest stop near Fruita, on the west side of Colorado National Monument, around 2PM. I had some lunch, and then I wanted to empty the van’s waste tanks of any fluids. Some fluid must have settled out of some lines, because the indicator on the BMPro monitor said there was some. I had to wait in line for several other RV types to do as I wanted to do. Finally, I was done around 3:00 or so. I texted Laura and said I’d be there shortly.

Meeting Laura Butterworth

Laura? Who is Laura? Laura is a woman I met back in September, September 14 to be exact. She and I met while camping at Dolly Copp Campground, a National Forest campground about five miles north of Mount Washington. Here is how we met.

I was walking around the campground roads, something I do at all the campgrounds I visit. The section where I was walking had several reservation tags on the campsite poles. Several adjacent sites, about ten of them, had tags that said “Smith”. As I was walking along the road, looking at these tags, I approached Laura’s campsite. She saw me and asked, “Are you looking for something?” I told her no, I wasn’t, and I told her about the Smiths. We talked very briefly. I noted I could hardly see her face. She had her hat pulled down over her eyebrows, and she had some other piece of clothing pulled up from her neck, covering her mouth, so I could only see her eyes and her nose areas of her face. I don’t recall anything more of our conversation, but I do recall, after walking away, saying to myself, “Why didn’t you stay talking with her? Not sure why, but at any rate, I said to myself, maybe I’ll see her again. I hoped I would.

Next day, I did see her again. I was walking from my campsite to the registration area, where there was a self-check-in. I was going to stay one more night, but I would have to switch sites. As I was walking, she rode by on her bicycle, literally seemed to be flying by. This time, she had long hair flowing down her back. I mean, really long, past her waist. She was wearing a red coat and, apparently, she was also going to register for another night. I met up with her at the self-check-in. We talked about ten minutes, and I told her I’d look for her later at her campsite to talk some more.

I dropped by her site later that afternoon, and we spent about 30 minutes talking. About what? Well, one thing we did was look at the clouds, and I pointed out some formation and told her what I saw, and she saw it too. We had some fun with that, and with the fact that, as we watched, we literally saw some of those little clouds disappear – poof – they were gone, and only blue sky was where they had been. She also explained to me that her roof-top tent had somehow gotten wet inside. It was dripping water. I don’t know recall how it happened. She told me she was on Day 3 of a six-month trip, and that she was going out to the southwest eventually. Well, we talked and talked, and I told her I might be going out west as well, though I was unsure of my plans, as I might go southeast. I gave her my email and said stay in touch about her travels, if she so desired.

I did not see her the next day. I left for Danbury the next morning. A few days later, I received an email from her, letting me know where she was. We stayed in touch through multiple emails, kind of irregularly, over the next month, exchanging a series of about six or seven emails each. This led up to our meeting at Colorado National Monument. I had told her about Colorado National Monument in one of my emails. She decided to go there, and she suggested we meet at Colorado National Monument.

Fruita Canyon Overlook

I met Laura in the campground on Saturday, October 22. She had arranged with a park ranger at the campground to have a site next to her reserved for me. She greeted me very friendly and up-tempo, and in a short time invited me down to a cliff edge, adjacent to her site, to have a beer together and enjoy the amazing view. There is an amazing view of Fruita Canyon and the entrance road to the park. We sat there a longish time, until the sun had set and it was starting to become dark. Our perch overlooked a vast and beautiful panorama. We were having a conversation on top of the cliff, hundreds of feet above the canyon road, overlooking an expansive canyon, a wonderful place for our initial lengthy, in-person talk, which was to be the first of many.

I do not remember all the things we talked about. One topic was high school, as we talked about basketball, as we both played in high school, and she played in college. We had both been runners in high school, too.

We also talked about our past relationships, which she initiated. We talked some about our marriages and our divorces. One thing I mentioned was how my ex-wife and I separated a couple times, and twice we came back together. after some marriage counseling. A third time we did not. We divorced in June, 1984, after nine years of marriage.

I told Laura the main conflict with revolved around religion and spirituality. We had both gone to Immaculate High School, a Catholic high school in Danbury. We had been friends but did not date in high school until basically the very end, starting around graduation time. At the same time, we became involved in a small, Charismatic Christian Community within our Catholic Church. At one point, I left that Community. I stopped going to the prayer meetings and other activities they held, while she continued. I was still going to Mass. I had not left the Church. My exit from the community was a conflict between us, as she thought I was not doing the will of God, I was not being a good Christian, as my focus was less concerned 24/7 about God’s will for me.

Laura did not tell me much about her divorce. She did not say what year it had been, but it seemed it was over ten years ago. She said that people change over time, inferring maybe she and her husband were no longer well matched. She mentioned one change concerned bird hunting with dogs. She was totally against hunting, and apparently her husband had liked to hunt. I do not recall that she provided other examples related to how she and he ex had changed, except she also mentioned she had a great spiritual awakening around this time. I took it that this spiritual awakening and potential nun-hood had a lot to do with the “people change” aspect she mentioned, and it was somehow involved in her divorce.

Following our talk about marriages, I told her about my only other long-term relationship, which lasted a few years with a woman named in Colorado in the 1990s. In addition to her marriage, Laura told me she had a long-term relationship in school before her marriage. I told her I had some other short-term relationships, lasting a couple months or so, but they did not last. I told her those were all of my relationships. Then I asked her if she had any other long-term relationships. She answered right away, telling me that the other relationship, the one in school before her marriage, had lasted a long time. I took that as an inference that she had no other significant relationships and that she was single present day.

I also told her in this conversation that I was happy being single, had been for a long time, and I was not looking for a relationship.

I told her a lot about my travel over the years, too. She told me about her family, her daughters, her growing up in North Carolina, visiting Maine as a camp counselor, and eventually choosing to move to Maine. I told her a good deal about my Mom and my experiences with helping her over the past several years as she aged, and how we lost her to Covid. Laura seemed to be good company, and the view we had at Cliff edge, in warmish sunshine in the mid-60s was spectacular.

Sunday morning (10/23), the campsite awoke to a combination of ice and a dusting of snow. The temp had certainly dropped, and it was quite windy. I invited Laura into my van to sit in a warmer environment. I had heat. So, we sat in the van and talked more, friendly and upbeat.

We took three walks, two on Sunday and one on Monday (10/24). One walk was around the campground. It went along the canyon rim, bordering a trail that went from the visitor center to an overlook called Book Cliffs View. With the snow cover and foggy-like clouds, it was a beautiful view, some kind of scenic heaven. Laura at one point started singing a song about potatoes, counting potatoes/seconds as we tried to outrun a fog bank rapidly moving forward up the canyon. Counting helped determine how fast the fog bank was moving. I’m not sure she got the calculations right, but it was a fun activity!

Later that evening, we walked out past the visitor center and along the road going east. About a mile along, we came to Otto’s Trail, a short trail that led to another overlook. It was right about sunset and the views were spectacular. We took a lot of photos! We walked back to the campground as it became dark out.

Monday morning, there was more snow, about 4”. We sat in my van, she had coffee and I had tea, and we talked some more. She also brought a journal with her. She writes a lot about what is going on with her travels and life. We did another hike around the Book Cliffs overlook area again. As we finished our hike, we were saying what a great a time we had, the hikes, the views, the time together talking, the overall experience. Laura walked up to me as we finished our hike in an enthusiastic manner, beaming with a big smile, and she threw me a high five, shouting loudly, “Friends for life!”

Just before she left, I asked about her license plate. “What’s the story with the Maine Veteran license plate? Were you in the service?”

She grew serious and told me that she had “not been entirely forthcoming” in our talks, and that she had recently lost her business partner. She said the plate had belonged to her business partner. I could see on her face she was emotional. I told her, “Well, if you ever want to talk about it, I’m a good listener,” and it was left at that.

A few minutes later, standing next to her 4Runner, smiling and now light-hearted, she asked me, “Are you an Angel, Tom?” I was not sure what she was getting at or why she would ask, but it made me feel good. I interpreted it as the weekend was something that made her feel good inside. She asked if she could give me a hug. “Sure,” I said. She walked over to me, and she gave me a big hug. Then she got into the driver’s seat. We said we’d meet up in Moab soon and do some hikes there. She said she’d like that. She drove off.

She seemed so positive all weekend. She talked briefly about Other Nice People. We talked a lot about kindness and compassion, which over time became a central point of our friendship as well as representative of our communication and activities with other campers. Many of our conversations were such that I felt we had a really good connection and a dynamic chemistry. There was synchronicity and positive interactions, such as would be the case in the start of a trusting friendship. We had a fantastic weekend.

I did another hike that afternoon, the Rim Trail adjacent to the visitor center and campground.

Mice in the van!

That night, I heard noises in the van, noises that sounded – unfortunately – like little feet running back and forth somewhere. At one point, I turned my flashlight on, and I found myself looking at a mouse! Yikes! I tried swatting at it with a shoe, which was silly, as I could never do it quick enough to get it. Finally, after about a half hour of this battle, I decided to give up, and I set up my tent outside, deciding I was not going to sleep inside where a mouse could run all over the place, including in and out of my warm sleeping bag. It took some time, maybe 30 minutes, to set up the tent. I had never used it before! It was brand new! So, it took me time to figure it out. After I got it set, I put in the air mattress and sleeping bag. The snow had all melted on that part of the ground, so no problem with that aspect. I slept fine. It was in the low 30s overnight.

Next day, Tuesday (11/25) I drove into Grand Junction. I found the local Walmart and bought two mouse traps, as well as a product with peppermint oil, which is said to be a mouse deterrent. Armed with this, I headed back to the campground. Before going back into the park, I stopped at the rest stop again. I left my van there while I rode my bike up that spectacular, hilly road that Laura and I had looked down on from the cliff edge. It is a 4-mile climb through such picturesque rock formations. I took it slow, stopped to take photos, and even came across some big horn sheep grazing on the side of the road. I stopped at an overlook near the top, just in time to offer help to three young women who were trying to take a selfie with the canyon in the background. I took several shots for them, several angles, and they took a couple pics of me with my camera. Then I continued to the top, riding a few miles past the visitor center before turning around and heading back.

Concerning the mouse, long story short, that night, after I turned out the lights, the mouse sounds started again. I had put the traps out, laden with peanut butter, and they worked fine, capturing two mice in about 45 minutes. That was the end of it. I felt bad doing them in, but I did not want them traveling with me.

On Wednesday, 10/26, I did another bike ride. This time I left from the campground and rode east on the Canyon Loop Road. I went out about 10 miles and then turned around. I reached the high point on the road, which had significant snow at that elevation along the roadside, at about 7000’. My bike computer said it was 28 degrees! I knew it was cold, but I had not guessed it was that cold. Whatever the case, I was dressed for it. I also ran into some snow flurries along the way, and there were several more big horn sheep, too.