New Mexico again

We arrived in New Mexico yesterday afternoon. My sister Dee lives in Dixon, between Santa Fe and Taos, on the low road to Taos. She is a wonderful hostess and has four dwellings on her nine acres, plus a teepee, so there are plenty of places to stay. We are staying in what she calls the "little house," which seems almost castle like to us after more than 21 nights in the true "little house"--our casita.

Dee has a giant garden and tonight we had a harvest dinner largely reaped from the bountiful garden. The corn was so marvelous...picked right before we ate it. Heavenly.

Dee's beloved Carlos and my beloved Jim, at a distance, in the garden.

Dixon is a little village where a lot of artists live. One of my favorites is a ceramicist and glass artist named Shel Neymark. http://www.shelneymark.com/

Dixon's library won a national award this year and Shel and other folks went to the White House to receive it from Michelle Obama. Saturday, there was a big party to celebrate the award and the library. Shel was instrumental in getting the library established and sister Dee was a major supporter all along the journey. 

http://embudovalleylibrary.org/News/single_post/we-are-a-winner-of-the-2015-national-medal-for-museum-and-library-service

Part of Saturday's celebration was the unveiling of a ceramic mural done by Shel and some young helpers that portrays the Embudo Valley, Dixon's geographic home. Like all of Shel's work, it is inspiring and remarkable. These pictures don't do it justice, but I am so impressed with it.

This is a shot of the entire mural. 

Numbers in the piece refer to the detailed pictures of important landmarks in the area.

A closer shot of some of the landmarks.

The mural has been installed on the side of the Dixon Coop, next to the new library. It will be completed with a colored plaster fill. 

Jim and I stopped here three weeks ago on our way to Colorado and are happy to have the opportunity to visit again for a few days. After this, we will be heading back home, hot or not, though I'm hearing that perhaps the worst is over. I recognize this could be wishful thinking.

Keep it cool!

Colorado Rocky Mountain High......

After three-plus weeks, I can safely say, Colorado is one awesome state! God really shows off here! There's not as much cell and internet service as I would prefer, but otherwise it is a great place!

I last reported from the Blue Mesa Reservoir where we landed for a couple of nights on the way west. We did go kayaking again there and had only one or two moments...OK, maybe three minutes, when I wondered if I would make it home. A storm threatened nearby while we were on the water and the wind was blowing hard against us and we had to paddle our little arms off. It only rained for a few minutes...but they were a little frightening. All was well, though.

After we left there, we went to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, which is a truly breathtaking canyon, not as large as the Grand Canyon but certainly “gorge”ous in its own right.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

You know who at Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Then we headed toward Ouray and Silverton and the “million dollar highway” which doesn't seem all that spendy these days after I learned while working at the City of Richardson that hike and bike trails cost a million dollars a mile to build, or did a few years back...

Still, 550 between Ouray and Durango is one amazing stretch of highway and it was even OK pulling that cute trailer. Of course, I haven't been behind the wheel since we hit the mountains, but Jim is a very accomplished trailer driver. So yay.

We stayed one night in a Colorado state park. As Jim said, state parks have to be amazing in Colorado since they have so many national parks. It was lovely and fun.

Yesterday afternoon, we arrived in Mesa Verde National Park which is also awesome. A lovely mix of Colorado and New Mexico, maybe with some Arizona and Utah mixed in since it is so close to the four corners.

I need my thesaurus; I'm running out of adjectives for beautiful.

This morning, we took two tours of two ruins in the park. Climbed a 30 foot wooden ladder then crawled through an 18 inch hole, then climbed a couple more ladders. It was great but wow. During the second tour, I couldn't even carry my camera, afraid I would have to crawl on the old belly again.

A kiva and the ranger telling us about it in Balcony House at Mesa Verde.

We're off again tomorrow...heading toward home via Dee's place in New Mexico. Not sure when we'll actually make it home, but it has been a wonderful trip.

I meant to work on little flags for all our stops, but have only gotten one done! Oh well!

Thanks for your interest.

Being spontaneous

Today we woke up in Salida, Colorado, and went into town for a little breakfast. Such a lovely little town and again, it doesn't seem overly popular or chichi. Our waiter said he had recently moved there from California and that it was in the "banana belt" so the winters weren't too bad. Um, well, I guess, but I'll bet they are a lot colder than I'm used to. But the summers are glorious!

We hooked up again and headed west toward Ouray and Silverton, the Alps of the U.S. I've been to this area before, about 40 years ago, so wonder if anything has changed. Ha.

On the way along Highway 50, we passed a large body of water, the largest in Colorado, it turns out, that is really beautiful. Then we saw a great national campground high on a hill overlooking the water...so we pulled in. No connections, but bathrooms, like we had in Rocky Mountain National Park, and here there's phone and data. So yay, that makes me happy.

Our little casita from a distance.

The gorge below the dam that dams the big lake.

My sweetie climbs the steps out of the gorge.

We plan to be here two nights then continue heading west...to see what pops up next on the trail to nowhere....and everywhere.

Hope all is well along your road....

The wanderers

OK, well, sometimes I think I'm crazy and sometimes I know I am. So yesterday it was time to leave the Rocky Mountain National Park and move on. The plan, as mentioned below, was still to go to Wyoming, since I've never been there before, but the more we looked at the map, the more silly it seemed to go there just to say I'd set foot in that state. There really doesn't look like there's much to see in the southeastern part of the state. So, we headed east from the park toward I-25 on a different road than we'd come in on. It is truly beautiful...but then almost everywhere in Colorado is beautiful.

We got to Loveland and decided to head south...back home maybe, back to New Mexico maybe...just back. In Denver, we decided to head west on I-70 and as soon as we got back into the mountains, Jim perked up. He has been very patient and tolerant and understanding of my waffling and sometime discontent. He has been wanting to find a “free” campsite in a national forest so I told him to go right ahead. I'd put him in charge of finding a place to stay.

We got off the road at Georgetown...what a gorgeous little place! It's not very far from Denver really but it's not a ski town for some reason so seems a little more reasonable. A guy in the visitor center told us to head toward the Guanella Pass to find a campground though most would probably be full. They were but we did see another little white trailer pulled off on the side of the road, so we pulled in too. It was truly lovely with a large grassy area and a babbling brook below...mostly out of sight, but not earshot. We spent the night there and again I slept very well.

We woke up early...this is the new pattern...early to bed and early to rise...aren't we so farmerish! We packed it up and went back into Georgetown for a delicious if unhealthful breakfast then roamed around a bit in the quaint little downtown area. We left by lunchtime and ended up tonight in Salida, where we have FULL HOOKUPS which means water, electricity and even sewer. I could take the longest shower in the history of the world except that I washed all the towels earlier and they told me that the dryers were 80 cents but only took quarters...what? I got what seemed like enough quarters, but after the clothes were washed and I put them in the dryers, I found that 75 cents gets you 9 minutes...9 MINUTES...of drying. Nothing dries in nine minutes. So, I used up all the quarters I had and now everything is still wet.

Oh well, if I can get the blog updated that will at least be something.

Sorry to go on and on. No Wyoming or Montana this trip. Now the plans are western Colorado, Chaco Canyon, Dee's place and then back home. Don't know when at this point.

I'm a happier camper today anyway.

All the best.

Some who wander MAY be lost.......

Wednesday we went kayaking on a lovely little lake--it was really a pond--called Lily Lake. There were lots of cute mama and baby ducks, a couple of geese, a cadre of neon blue dragon flies and a lot of vacationing humans walking around the little lake, taking pictures of us in our yellow kayak.

Somehow though, Wednesday night, I lost it. Everything just seemed so hard and not worth it. The cooking, which mostly Jim is doing; the setting up and breaking down, THE LACK OF INTERNET...I don't know. I just started thinking that maybe I was ready to head for the home...where I know it is exceedingly HOT.

We talked a bit about the possibilities and went to sleep. I must say I sleep very well in this little plastic bean and that is a very good thing.

We discovered that Jim's good friend Bruce and his girlfriend happened to be vacationing in the area and we made a plan to meet them for lunch Thursday. We woke up very early and ate breakfast. We decided to stay one more night in the Rocky Mountain National Park and not try to find a parking place for the casita in the very busy town of Estes Park. We had some time before meeting them so decided to go on a little hike. At the first place we went, we were told the trail wasn't very good and we should try something different. We rode the shuttle bus to another drop off and decided to walk back to the campground (Glacier Basin)...a hike of just about a mile. A park ranger told us where to pick up the trail and off we went. We had been walking a little while when we saw a sign that said something like “No horses allowed beyond this point. Go around Sprague Lake for Glacier Basin.” We had just come from Sprague Lake and decided that sign must apply to people riding horses. The trail was full of evidence of very healthy horses...

We walked on....and on....The trail got steeper and rockier and I was grateful that I had worn socks and my hiking sandals, but sorry that I didn't have my real hiking shoes on. We came to more signs that seemed to indicate that we were on the right path and we walked on. Finally we came to a sort of roundabout where there were four or five signs. One said, “Glacier Basin Campground” with an arrow that said, “1.7 miles.” Oh my. I figured we weren't going to make the noon meeting, but guessed we would still manage to meet Bruce and his girlfriend at some point. Right then 1.7 miles seemed like a very long way indeed. Jim found me a lightweight walking stick and I was glad to have it.

The trail was through the deep woods and was marked every now and then by little bright orange flags. I was glad to see them. There was no one else around...at all...and this in a park practically packed with people everywhere. There was plenty of fresh evidence of horses on the trail though. The little flags started turning color...yellow first, then white, though Jim showed me they were still orange on the opposite side. I couldn't tell at all what direction we were walking and the trail seemed to have little resemblance to the little map we had. At one point, we met three people on horses...who appeared to be a mother, daughter and guide. The mother was having a hard time making her horse go and the daughter kept telling her to kick him harder and “use the whip!” I was glad to just have my own feet to command...even though they were quite recalcitrant.

Finally, we met a trio who said the campground was half a mile ahead. I was very happy. We ended up getting back to the campsite about 12:30 and went into town to meet Bruce, not even late, though we had missed the meeting.

So, the second adventure of this trip ended fine, just like the first. I wasn't really scared this time. I wasn't even really tired. I seem to have adjusted to the high altitude now...I'm not huffing and puffing like I was last week. I guess I was just worried that we were on the wrong path and were somehow going in circles and would never find our way back to the campground. I admire backpackers who are out there on their own. Their sense of direction must be far superior to mine.

Friday we will leave for Wyoming. I don't think we'll make it to Montana this trip and we may be home sooner than I thought we might. Fifteen days out now, a few days in Wyoming, and it will take at least three days to get back home...I may have reached my limit....I must be a true homebody at heart.

Thanks to all of you who show me the path each day.

Cheers.

Hello again from the road.

We went to Denver to visit my college roomie Jeanne Archer and her dear husband Mike. We had a lovely time in their beautiful home in central Denver. They fed us well and showed us around town a bit and we slept in a house not on wheels. It was fun!

Yesterday, we arrived in Rocky Mountain National Park. Really gorgeous and fun, but no internet, no cell service. I'm beginning to understand the depth of my dependence on technology. 

We haven't kayaked again, but maybe tomorrow. We had a reserved campsite for only two nights...so tomorrow we'll see if we can snag one of the "first come first served" sites. If not, we'll head on to Wyoming. We've pretty much decided not to try to go to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone because they are so far and AMERICA IS ON VACATION BABY.  We have discovered that here at Rocky Mountain N.P. and imagine it will just be worse at Yellowstone and Grand Teton. We'll just head north and see where it takes us. Plan to be home around Aug. 24 now.

Thanks for your interest.

Crested Butte time ends with blue moon

Off we go tomorrow to Denver to visit old friends for a couple of nights and possibly sleep in a house! Crested Butte has been a lot of fun and we've met new friends and seen old ones again. All in all, a very fun--and cool--week!