{"id":502,"date":"2016-07-02T03:46:34","date_gmt":"2016-07-02T03:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=502"},"modified":"2017-04-24T14:15:16","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T14:15:16","slug":"making-it-in-to-grand-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/07\/02\/making-it-in-to-grand-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday, July 2 Making it in to GRAND LAKE"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>We walked for over 2 hours this morning\u20146:00-8:30am– to reach Grand Lake. We were tired and famished\u2014wow, no problem! There is a restaurant called ‘The Fat Cat’ with an all-u-can-eat breakfast buffet. Well-fed, we headed for Shadowcliff Hostel to get our box and a place to stay.<\/p>\n

Shadowcliff is beyond awesome, but for tonight they had only 2 spots left\u2014in the men’s<\/span> dorm. OK for Bill, but not for me. So we sadly left and made like Mary & Joseph looking for somewhere to stay. Every place was either full or way beyond our price range. Finally the ‘cheapest’ motel offered to let us camp out back by the dumpster. OK! We went for it.<\/p>\n

It rained off and on all day. We were able to take showers, but not wash clothes. All we really wanted to do was lie down and rest, and we did.<\/p>\n

DETAILS:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 It rained off and on last night, but we were snug in our tent out among the weeds in the boat yard.\u00a0 But this morning–ugh!\u00a0 We had lots of condensation to deal with.\u00a0 Before we headed down the road, we left a thank you note and some $$ at the trailer park manager’s house.\u00a0 It was 6:00 am when we started walking, and I was thinking “Breakfast!”\u00a0 But though there were many houses, marinas and campgrounds along the road as it followed the lake shore, there was not a single place where we could even stop and get coffee.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 We were absolutely famished.\u00a0 But the views of Grand Lake were great!\u00a0 Wow, that is a pretty lake!<\/p>\n

Finally we reached the turnoff that went to the town of Grand Lake, which was our destination.\u00a0 We walked and walked some more–still nothing was open.\u00a0 Finally we got to the main street, and as we walked along with our stomachs growling, we did notice that every motel we passed had a “Vacancy” sign.\u00a0 “Hah!” we thought.\u00a0 “So much for the people who said we’d never find a place to stay on 4th of July weekend!”\u00a0 But we didn’t stop–our mission was “Find breakfast!”\u00a0 and besides that, we planned to stay at the hostel. And hooray–there finally was a restaurant open:\u00a0 The Fat Cat, with an all-u-can-eat breakfast buffet!\u00a0 We left our packs by the fireplace and proceeded to EAT!\u00a0 The owners have a British background, so in addition to the usual American breakfast stuff, they also had Scotch eggs, bread pudding and other goodies.\u00a0 The Brit-style scones were clearly labelled, “These are for butter & jam!\u00a0 No gravy, please!”<\/p>\n

When we were done eating, to our amazement, the owner lady came to us with a ziplok bag and said, “You guys are CDT hikers, and I know you are always hungry.\u00a0 Here, fill this up with whatever you want, and take it with you for later.”\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0\u00a0 We filled that bag with pastries and other yummy stuff.<\/p>\n

Then we headed up the hill to the Shadowcliff Hostel to get our resupply box and a place to stay.\u00a0 The views from the hostel deck are beyond amazing.\u00a0 And yes, our box was there, and we happily signed the CDT trail register….but then the manager sadly told us that they only have two spots left for tonight–in the MEN’s dorm.\u00a0 Well, that would be fine for Fixit, but not for me.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 So we used the hostel dining room table to spread out our food and sort it into our food bags for the next leg of the CDT, then we went back down the hill and started making like Mary and Joseph, looking for a place to stay.\u00a0 We are just too tired to go back to the trail yet.<\/p>\n

But that’s when we discovered that even though all the motels had vacancies, their price for a night’s stay was beyond outrageous–way beyond our budget.\u00a0 Finally, at the far end of town, the last hope, was the Sunset Motel.\u00a0 Even their rate was ridiculous, but they did agree to let us camp out in back for $25.\u00a0 We could take a shower in the “shower building” next door, and\u00a0 there was a public bathroom across the street from the motel.<\/p>\n

So we said, “OK” and found a spot by the dumpster out back.\u00a0 Then the clouds blew back a bit and the sun came out–hooray!\u00a0 We took our damp stuff, including the tent, and laid it out on top of the dumpster to dry.\u00a0 As soon as the tent was dry (which didn’t take long) we set it up–just in the nick of time, because the clouds closed back up and the rain began again.\u00a0 We laid our very tired selves down inside the nice dry tent and just collapsed for awhile.\u00a0 I finally revived enough to start studying the maps of the trail to Steamboat Springs.<\/p>\n

Finally the sun came out again and I decided to be very brave and go take a shower.\u00a0 The reason I had to be brave was that all I have for a “towel” is my bandana, so I’m not really “dry” when I get dressed again, and my hair is very wet–so if it’s a cloudy, chilly day, I soon would find myself very cold.\u00a0 But the sun looked like it might stay for at least an hour, maybe, so I went for it.\u00a0 It felt so good to be clean!<\/p>\n

Once my hair was sufficiently dry, I walked down the street to the grocery store to get something for lunch.\u00a0 I picked out all the things we really miss having on the trail, so it was a very odd collection of food–various fruits, avocado, cucumbers and V-8 juice. There was a picnic table behind the motel, so we sat there and happily ate everything, including the entire ziplok full of goodies from The Fat Cat.\u00a0 Just as we finished eating, back came the rain, and we dashed for the tent again.\u00a0 This time, I looked over our food and wrote a shopping list of what to buy for the next leg of the trail.\u00a0 Once the rain subsided to a mere drip, I headed back to the grocery store, and managed to find everything except a very important item–candy bars!\u00a0 I looked everywhere and could not find any.\u00a0 Finally I asked the store clerk, and it turned out that the candy bars are all kept securely away from the public, behind the counter.\u00a0 The clerk said that so many people STEAL the candy bars that they were losing way too much money.\u00a0 Now all candy is kept in “protective custody.”\u00a0 So I had to TELL her what I wanted, and she got them out.\u00a0 Sad.<\/p>\n

Back at the tent, I carefully repaired our rather battered food bags with tape, and loaded them up with over 4 1\/2 days of food, which should be more than enough to get us to Steamboat Springs.\u00a0 We’ll need to do at least 18 miles per day (pathetic by our PCT standards).\u00a0 Then I lay down to just rest.\u00a0 I am still so tired.\u00a0 Finally at the end of the day, Fixit and I went hunting for some dinner and ended up at a Mexican restaurant, having “Giant Burritos.”\u00a0 The people at the table next to us were amazed to see that we finished them.\u00a0 Then we went for a walk to see the Grand Lake “beach” (stopping off for an ice cream cone along the way).\u00a0 Grand Lake is the largest natural lake in Colorado, and it really is beautiful.\u00a0 Not too many people out, though–it was cloudy and cold and windy.<\/p>\n

I went back to the tent and crawled into my sleeping bag, while Fixit went on one last walk in search of wi-fi–he is still trying to sort out what happened with the new watch he ordered.\u00a0 I’m not sure how much sleep we will get tonight–there’s a loud party going on the the house right behind the motel, and from what we can see, there are parties going on all over town.\u00a0 The place is packed for the 4th of July weekend.\u00a0 But tomorrow, we’ll be back on the trail!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 We walked for over 2 hours this morning\u20146:00-8:30am– to reach Grand Lake. We were tired and famished\u2014wow, no problem! There is a restaurant called ‘The Fat Cat’ with an all-u-can-eat breakfast buffet. Well-fed, we headed for Shadowcliff Hostel to get our box and a place to stay. Shadowcliff is beyond awesome, but for tonight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colorado"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}