Fall 2021

The brownies are safely stored in the oven for travel, I can hear Willie Nelson singing On The Road Again, and we are off on another adventure.

The destination is Colorado, I know what you’re thinking don’t those folks go anywhere else?  But like Johnny Cash, on his long dusty road, we’ve been everywhere, Winnemucca, Bald Gap, Bat Cave, and Fancy Gap. We consider Colorado our favorite state, (except for that snow deal) but Maine and the lobster thing run a close second. 

This trip  we’ll go up across the Mogollon Rim through Payson, again.  We started going this way instead of up through Flagstaff for a couple of reasons.  First the traffic on I-17 from Phoenix to Flagstaff is terrible and a couple times we’ve been stuck in a traffic jam that more than tried our patience.  At our age that doesn’t take much but it was a nuisance.  Secondly, Flagstaff could use some serious road work, the highway through the area is nothing but torn up asphalt. After having our teeth loosened a couple of times hitting a pot hole big enough to swallow a smart car we changed our route.  

Besides if you go up through Payson and the Rim area you might just get to see some of the wild horses.  The last time we were thru there we stayed in a campground and the host reminded us not to approach  the wild horse that

Looked just like this but Gray and bigger.

was roaming around the campground.  We saw several of the beautiful creatures just wandering around browsing on the grass. This Rim trip,  we saw a beautiful gray squirrel.  He was much larger than the brown squirrels in the area.  He graciously jumped up on a stump and posed for us.  We didn’t bother to grab the camera or phone, trying to get pictures of wildlife usually means you miss the wildlife while digging for the camera.  This squirrel reminded us of the ghost squirrels along the North rim of the Grand Canyon.  I think this guy was even bigger than the ghost squirrels though.

Driving a motorhome towing a car it takes about twelve hours driving time to get to Southwestern Colorado from Tucson. Of course a passenger car would probably make it in an eight hour stretch but we use two six hour days of driving, we have time and six hours of driving is usually enough.  We stop for wild horses or gray squirrels along the way.  It’s the journey, after all.

Dolores River Park

Our first Colorado stop is along the West Dolores River in the Mavreeso campground.  The town of Dolores consists of the main highway and one parallel side street.  It does have a great hamburger stand on the highway and a delightful River Park on the edge of town.  We were happy to have the park since our campground didn’t have cell service.  We’d run into town, every once in a while to enjoy the park, catchup with the phone.    

Remember sometime ago I told you about Jeanne and Gordon who live on the edge of Dolores.  We stopped to visit with them two years ago when we were in the area. They have a few RV spots along the river, we stayed with them about thirteen years ago when Zoe was just six months old.   They took us up to their old homestead for lunch and Jeanne took us up to the Indian dwelling up in the mountains.  It is one of our favorite traveling experiences.  On this trip, we were returning to our campground from a visit to the park and a small gray building caught my eye and I shouted to Monty, ‘That’s it, that’s Jeannie and Gordon’s homestead.’  We hit the brakes and pulled up to the gate. 

Jeanne and Gordon’s homestead

I’m so glad we got a picture to share.  The building looks exactly the same, it appears Gordon has been busy re-staining the porch, it looks good.  You can even see the pump house that covers the well where Jeanne had Monty drawing water to fill the wash basin.  Jeanne set out a bar of soap and a dishtowel and everyone washed up before lunch. The BBQ and beans were heated up on the wood burning stove.  Jeanne and I did the dishes after heating the water.  Boy the good old days, right? 

At the campground we met a couple from Tucson, who share our love of the San Juan Mountains.  Forty-five years ago, Jerry and Candy flew from Minneapolis to Grand Junction, rented a car to visit the San Juans and have been coming here ever since.  We’ll have to go to lunch and share stories.

From the Dolores area we headed a bit higher up past the posh Telluride area and the hamlet of Ouray to Ridgway.  (there is no ‘e’ in Ridgway, like the Smoky Mountains,  apparently their was a shortage of ‘e’s’ when naming these places) We’ve stayed at Ridgway State Park several times, it is one of our favorite Colorado parks.  We took several sojourns from there, one up over Owl Creek Pass to check out the changing colors of the Aspen trees. We did this a few years ago in July and there was still lots of snow on the pass, but not this year. 

Love the white bark of the Aspens. Changing leaves just starting.

Just fifteen miles down the road is the charming small town (900 residents) of Ouray.  Lots of tourist activity on this lovely fall day. Almost every home has been refurbished since we were first here thirty years ago.  The bright colors and the bit of gingerbread on the steepled roofs of the houses and the towering mountains surrounding the area give this place a feeling of the Swiss Alps.There is a nice hot springs facility right in the center of town.  This is the first time it wasn’t really crowded but we didn’t have our swim suits so although it looked inviting we weren’t prepared.  

Just a mile or so out of Ridgway we discovered Orvis Hot Springs.  Lots of big trees and whereas the Ouray springs are wide open this one in Ridgway is fenced. Surprisingly there were about fifty cars in the parking area.  Curiosity got the best of us so we Googled Orvis Hot Springs.  We were startled to discover a lovely webpage touting the benefits of this clothing optional complex. Well, that’s interesting, even a bit titillating, hmmm, we don’t have our swim suits, we don’t know anyone here, we hemmed and hawed a bit but decided we were about thirty years passed our full display date. Might have been fun though.

AARP, our bible, published an article on road trips a few months ago and mentioned a restaurant in Ridgway.  Those are the kinds of treasures we file away for future reference and now was the time to use it.  Eatery 66 lived up to it’s billing and we enjoyed a delightful lunch on the patio.

We moved on to Grand Junction to catch up with Monty’s daughter, Noel, husband, Paul, and the two boys, Will and Max.  We saw them in July and now in September.  A habit we’d like to continue.  They are a really nice family.  While parked in the Fruita State Park we continued our tradition of walking across the street for a Margarita and a plate of crispy Chili Rellenos. There are as many ways to make Chili Rellenos as there are places that serve them but we discovered these are the best.  The next afternoon we needed to go out for milk so naturally we take the opportunity to run up to the Colorado National Monument. (They don’t sell milk there but the trip was lovely) This is a beautiful winding drive up the mountain with red canyon walls and juniper trees.  We were blessed to see three big horn sheep standing by the road to greet us.  

Castle Rock formation in Castle Valley

From Grand Junction it was just a hop over to Moab, Utah.   We thought we might stop in to see Arches National Park again but we’ll save it for another trip.  We spent one day on a drive up through the La Sal Mountains, it was lovely and we saw lots of color in the aspens and oak brush. We drove through Castle Valley for the first time and enjoyed the views.  Here you can see the Castle Rock formation. No room in the only state park here, so we were stuck in a crowded RV park.  Not our favorite thing, we used to say RV parks were full of old people but now we are them so we really shouldn’t complain. 

We ended up leaving for home a day earlier than we planned.  First Daisy had some kind of tummy upset.  In the middle of the night I was standing outside in the RV park in my nightie and tennis shoes trying to comfort her.  Monty was having trouble with a tooth and was eager to get to our dentist.  Needless to say all was not ‘right’ with the world. We loaded up the RV and headed home.

Once again the criteria for a good trip was met, beautiful scenery, some nice critters, and we met interesting people. Love this stuff.

Hike to Silverjack Lake

You don’t see signs like this in Tucson.