two perspectives

I woke up early on july 4th and decided i would go for a hike up mushroom rock before floating down the river that day. This is the view from the top of mushroom rock. From the top you can see where the Crystal river flows into the Roaring fork river.
One of my favorite places to be early in the morning is this rock. The view of Mnt. Sopris, the roaring fork valley and crystal valley and of course the rivers are beautiful from this perspective.


A few hours later we were floating the Crystal river from our house to Glenwood Springs, as we were getting closer to where to two rivers converge I had to get a photo of mushroom rock from this perspective as well. Two amazing perspectives of the same spot within hours of each other made for a pretty complete day.

Of course it doesn't take much effort to have a complete day when you live in Colorado, there are so many amazing visual feasts for your eyes just driving to work in the morning.
We also got a treat on our float from some Blue Herons nesting high in the trees.

geese everywhere, with babies that were getting big and a bald eagle perched in a tree floating through Aspen Glen.

The graffiti under the bridges i have to say are works of art, the colors just pop as you float by and you wonder who took the time to create something under a bridge for rafters passing by to see. I would have to suspect the private school up the hill had some fairly artistic students over the years that had some free time on their hands, and a creative streak just waiting for an opportunity to be set free. I love the pop of color suddenly in your line of vision after hours of trees and water.

Another sight that always amazes me on the river is the stuff that banks are made of...
you see concrete slabs from old construction sites and rusted iron and there is even an old washing machine half buried on the bank. Old cars are a fairly common thing to see buried on the bank. Anything to try and keep the bank from eroding and washing away with the winter snowmelt. This year we had quite a runoff season in our back yard and lost a little property.. We are thinking we need to throw our old hot water heater we just replaced onto the bank and let it become part of our history... probably won't but we had a great conversation about what could become a part of our river bank.

The whole day was so relaxing.. ahhh.. and after months of far to many hours of yard work it was just what i needed.. no fireworks, no bbq, just relaxing with the scenery floating by as i enjoyed the day wander aimlessly along with no agenda.


And of course i can't blog about a day on the river in our valley without a photo of Mnt Sopris...
I can't count all the different perspectives you can get of this mountain when you live in the Roaring Fork Valley.