We visited Colorado National Monument, in — you guessed it — Colorado, west of Grand Junction.

We started by having a picnic lunch in a nice shelter:

Then continued along the twisty roads, looking at the interesting rocks:

The first of three tunnels:

We stopped at several viewpoints:

Morons sitting on rocks off the trail:

An open-ended canyon:

Big horn sheep; we were excited to see her, as she was the first big horn sheep we’ve managed to get a picture of in the wild (we’ve seen them in a zoo in Palm Springs, and on the side of the road in Lake Mead, but not so close):

Viewpoint:

Blooming prickly pear cacti:

Visitor center:

Relief map:

The Colorado plateau; been to all of those places:

Views:

The other two tunnels:

Balancing rock: