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!

The eighth day

Greetings from God's country!

It really is so gorgeous here; the conference is terrific and the weather glorious. I hope each of you has an opportunity to come up here sometime in the summer.

These are a couple of shots taken just north of Crested Butte on a little scenic ride today. The "head" photographer was giving it a shot too, but I have no product of his to show you.

I think he got some good sky shots.

But, we did find a thrift store prize that he applied to our little casita and check the reflection too....

Happy days to you, one and all.

Tuesday...seventh night out

This is the RV park where we're staying til Saturday morning. It's about five miles south of the Crested Butte Mountain resort where the conference is. It is so beautiful in this area.

This morning we rode the ski lift up to near the top of the mountain then hiked about a mile farther up, but not all the way to the top. It was a little rough at times going up. Coming down was a lot easier, I thought. We just came back down to the ski lift, not all the way back down to the base. That would have been tough.

I didn't take a lot of pictures up there. Too busy trying to catch my breath I guess. Crested Butte is 12,162 at its crest. The resort town is at 9,375. A lot of people suffer with the altitude, but I haven't felt it too much, though climbing this morning left me breathless at times. I recovered quickly.

I was glad for the walking sticks. I think they are ski poles that Jim altered by taking off the bottom circular part. I found it very useful, both going up and coming down.

The RV resort has some nice common areas and a lovely bathroom and shower, but the individual sites themselves are a little tight. It's fine though. And the air...oh my. I won't talk about it too much since I know most of my readers are suffering now in extreme heat but....yeah...

Greetings from Crested Butte

Where the odds are good and the goods are a little odd.......but awfully sweet!

Conference started this morning with a meeting on the gorgeous deck overlooking the mountains and ski lifts. Last year I remember being very cold on that deck so I wore a coat and hat and scarf. By the end of the meeting I was almost down to underwear.....not really but I had definitely shed layers.

The weather here is refreshing and invigorating....when we woke up early this morning it was 45 degrees but now it's close to 80...the forecast for tonight is 39...brrrr! Wow. I may have an advanced degree in layers by the end of the week. I'm happy to report that the heater in the casita works as well as the a/c...better actually because there's both gas and electric so when we're off "the grid" we can still keep warm.

Not too many pictures today but had to get a little post done since this is my last chance of the day. The wifi at the RV park is sketchy.

Flowing on.......wish you were here........

Adventures Abound

When last we met, I was embarking upon a kayaking trip on the mighty Rio Grande. Sister Dee and her beloved Carlos rented an inflatable “funyak” to carry them down the river beside our yellow kayak, formerly the property of the most generous Paul and Cynthia Finney.

Spirits were high after Jim gave Dee and Carlos a mini lesson on kayaking. Dee had chosen a part of the river that had only a few small areas of rapids...not the much more formidable part of the river known as the “racetrack.” So off we went...down the Rio Grande gorge in beautiful northern New Mexico. All seemed to be fine. It was a beautiful day, the water was moving but not overly swiftly...all was well....until....dun dun dunt dun (what?)

We came upon a part of the river where there were some real rapids. Dee and Carlos headed into them first. They turned sideways, but righted themselves and made it through. Now it was our turn. A guide at the rental place had said to stay left...so we tried. But, alas, the kayak “wedged” and started filling with water. The cooler and the beach towels floated up and out and...away.

Jim told me to get behind him but first I asked for and put on one of the life jackets we carried in the boat. The water was shallow but moving swiftly and the rock population was abundant and varied. He told me to sit on a big rock right at the end of the kayak, so I did. He tried to free the boat, but it didn't seem to be budging. I was sitting there doing nothing. I'm not sure why I was so passive because it's not usually my way but I think mostly it was because I WAS SCARED S***LESS. I wasn't afraid that I would die, really, but just that I or Jim would break a leg or get a big bloody abrasion. I tried hard to stay calm and focused on my breathing.

Soon, a man who we had talked to right before entering the rapids made his way across the river and started helping to bale water out of the boat. He and Jim managed to get enough water out of it to get it unstuck and moving again. He took it around to the lower part of the rapids while we tried to figure out what we were going to do to get ourselves out. I saw no choice but to body surf. A couple of rafts loaded with people came by about that time and our helper tried to get them over to rescue me, but they couldn't navigate to me. I was glad because the rafts were full and there were little children on board. The rafts went on by and Jim took off first through the rapids and I followed. I just held on to that life vest and hoped for the best. I was fine. The kayak had been beached on the nearby bank but the water took us well past where it was. I held on to one of the rafts and they pulled me mostly to shore. A tiny little girl on the boat looked at me with the biggest, scaredest eyes. I wonder if she thought I was going to die. Jim askedme later  if I had smiled at her, but I think I was too scared myself to do so.

After I got to the bank, I waited while Jim went back for the kayak. Dee and Carlos were waiting downstream. She said she had started getting worried when we finally showed up. It seemed like a long time had passed, but I don't really know how long it took.

We did lose the beach towels, but Dee and Carlos snagged the cooler while it floated by (though all the water bottles were gone) and we lost some sun block but later acquired a different tube that passed by...perhaps lost by another wet but grateful river rat in training?

My takeaway from it all was Jim and that helper guy (who worked for a rafting company, we later learned) were my heroes and all you can really do is

GO WITH THE FLOW.

I'm very grateful that neither of us was hurt, that the boat was fine (actually a lot cleaner now than it had been) and that in the end, we all had a great time and a terrific memory.

We did go for a nice dinner at Rancho de Chimayo last night and today we had another smaller adventure when we took a road the GPS lady recommended that was mostly dirt and very steep and twisty for a few miles...when there was a better alternative. 

The view from the scary road was "gorge"ous!

But the casita did great...Jim said it didn't seem like he was even pulling a trailer.

Little tortuga casita crosses the Continental Divide.

So we arrived in Colorado and are now nestled in very cool Crested Butte right next to another casita and looking forward to a week here.

Sorry this was so long and thanks for looking.

Adios Palo Duro; Hola New Mexico!

We left Palo Duro Canyon a little reluctantly yesterday morning. It is so beautiful there. Really a hidden gem in Texas. It's such a surprise to come upon it in the middle of the vast prairie of West Texas.

But we knew we were going on to cooler climes and you can't beat that.

We headed toward Santa Fe where we met some friends of Jim from Whitney. On the way out of Santa Fe, we saw this sign:

What does it mean? We didn't have time to stop to find out but traveling does provide giggling ops, for sure.

New Mexico, like Texas, has had a lot more rain this year and is so green and beautiful. Dee has added a new horse to the pack...this picture is in her backyard.

Dee's man Carlos shows off his antique "seeder" which Jim found on the internet, dating to 1909 or thereabouts.

Today: kayaking on the Rio Grande and dinner at Rancho de Chimayo (http://www.ranchodechimayo.com/).

So far, casita life is pretty fab!

Spoke too soon? Nah........

Second day out. Today at Palo Duro Canyon again. It is very very hot during the day but gets rather lovely at night.

Last night, after I posted on a hilltop because there is NO CELL SERVICE everywhere (OK, yes, I'm hooked) things took a definite turn sharply downward.

Jim suddenly felt sick and decided he didn't want to eat (wait, what?) and when we got into the casita, we found a gazillion ants appearing out of nowhere. Does anyone like the game whack-a-mole?? We were whacking the ants like crazy but finally figured out where they were coming from and Jim ERADICATED them. It's so nice to have a man around the house. :-)

I ate some cheese and crackers and fruit and he started feeling better and all was turning well again. It turned out to be a lovely evening and the STARS!! Around 2 or so I opened the windows and turned on the fan and enjoyed the cool air and the stars out my window.

This morning we had a fab breakfast prepared by an all-better Jim B.

We tried a little hike but I thought I might melt for real so we just drove around and hung out casita side. So far so good.

Tomorrow we're off to New Mexico and sister Dee.

Thanks for looking!

First day success

We made it to palo duro canyon which is so beautiful!! Slow but steady. 

The picture doesn't do it justice of course. No connection at all down in the camping valley but so far so good! 

Now I'm wondering what's for dinner??! 

Gettin' ready to head out......

So, we're soon to be off on the big adventure, or as some call it "the odyssey." We leave Wednesday, heading first to Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo for two nights. Then to Dixon, NM, to visit sister Dee. Then to Crested Butte, Colorado for six nights for a conference.

After that, we head to Denver for two nights to visit old friends, then to Estes Park for two nights. At that point, Aug. 5, we'll have been in the casita for two weeks and we'll decide whether we're coming back to the heat or heading north to places I've never been, to wit: Wyoming and Montana.

A couple of weeks ago we took the rig out for a practice run. This was right before departure in the driveway.

I'm going to try to make little flags for each state we visit. This is the first one, representing our little road home.

I haven't blogged in years and never really did get into it then, so you'll just have to bear with me while I learn the "ropes," both of blogging and, of course, of camping.

Feel free to never look again! Meanwhile, stay cool.......