Pagosa Springs Trip

7/24/09 - 08/03/2009

This was an unexpected trip made possible by the generosity of Dr.  and Mrs. Marin who are both clients and friends. They owned a time share in Pagosa Springs, Colorado and were unable to use it after scheduling it for use. We are not very good at staying anywhere more than a day or two so this will be a new experience for us. Seven nights in one place is a very long time for us. Still, it s a wonderful gift. We begin by leaving early Friday morning. We travel from Wichita through Dodge City and on to Colorado.

We stopped in Dodge City for breakfast and visited with some Eagle Scouts as they were on their way to Philmont - a famed Boy Scout Camp. We arrived in Pagosa Springs around 4PM and found a nice one bedroom suite. We settled in and went grocery shopping at the local market where we found prices to be very reasonable and we purchased about 3 or 4 days worth of food. We went back to the room and went to bed early. The view of the sun setting over the mountains and the golf course was very nice.

We got up early and went on a driving and exploring day. We stopped at a local gas station and spoke with a fairly young Hispanic clerk.  I asked her where she would take her grandfather if he were visiting and she gave us some very good ideas. We drove to Durango past Chimney Rock and after a brief respite in the local mall, we decided to go a little further and went up to Silverton. The drive after leaving Durango was spectacular - a word we would come to use often in the next few days. We stopped on the top of a high mountain pass and took photos of the area. We spoke with bikers who were also traveling.

In Silverton, we walked around the city. It reminded us a "metropolitan" Cooke city Montana which is a place we believe to be the purest of tourist traps. Same feeling in Silverton. We were going to take a shortcut over the mountain to Creede but got a little nervous and decided to check out the road first. Good idea! We spoke with a man who had lived in the area all his life and the first words from him after hearing the way we wanted to go and looking at our car," you'll never make it." It turns out the road we wanted to go on was a "jeep" or 4-wheel drive road and we of course were in our little red mustang convertible.

We drove out of Silverton on toward Ouray and then to Montrose. The drive to Ouray was on a most interesting, scenic, and scary of roads. We drove past an abandoned mine which stretched along the road. We stopped and took pictures of an "orange" gushing river next to a mine door in a mountain side. We had never seen a river or stream quite like it before. It was not polluted but rather had taken on the color of  minerals in the ground. It was beautiful and strange.

We drove into Montrose which is a fairly large city. We had lunch and filled the car with gas at a very reasonable price of $2.28 a gallon- some 40 cents a gallon less than Pagosa Springs.  We headed toward Gunnison with the idea of taking a gravel road  as a short cut to the road to Creede.  The gravel road was only about 13-14 miles long and really a pretty drive high up on a mesa. We came out on a nice paved road that took us through Lake City and then Creede where we explored a little and then headed back to Pagosa Springs. We stopped at the intersection of the main highway and took a picture of rainbows over the Rainbow Motel. It was oddly pretty and unusual. We got home fairly late, very tired but after having a very nice day and driving 450 miles. This was only about twice what we had planned of for this day  yet we had a very nice time together as we did this.  This was easily one of the best days even though we were sometimes more than a little worried not knowing what to expect from the road.

Sunday morning early we got up and drove to Chama where we boarded a bus and road to Antonito, New Mexico. Once there we boarded a narrow gauge train and began a day long journey back to Chama. A very interesting guide kept up a running commentary along the way. We rode through flat high desert plains very slowly up through a very high narrow mountain pass. The highlight of the first part of the trip was riding through a pitch black tunnel and through the steep mountain pass. The drop off was straight down. Wild flowers were in full bloom and just beautiful. Lunch was filling and included in the trip. The afternoon ride was along a river bank over high trestle bridges and we arrived back in Chama around 5PM. We went home past beautiful horses and again tired after an extraordinary day. We took long showers to wash off all the coal dust from the train. Most of the day we spent in an open air car.

Monday we drove to Mesa Verde National Park. I believe it to be one of our nations fines National Parks and Linda and I have visited many National Parks. We were struck by the holiness of many of the places we were able to see. There were disappointments as we fund we were unable to take many of the tours because of our health. It was too hot and too steep and we ended up driving most of the day.

We were able to see a lot of the Park although from a distance. We took many pictures and walked through some of the ruins when we could. We did not make it all the way down to the Spruce Tree House but went at least 75% of the way down and then very slowly up. Linda's breathing was better than it could have been and that was a blessing. After the medical problems we have endured, there was no way we would take any unnecessary risks. We managed to have a very nice day and saw things we had never seen before. After we got home, in one of the many pictures Linda had taken, we found a bear and 2 cubs. We thought we had seen them but were not certain.  We also had a great ice cream and bought all of our gifts at the NP gift store which was having a clearance sale. We had a very nice lunch sitting outside.

Tuesday we had a fairly easy day. We drove only about 150 miles and spent most of the day at Chimney Rock State Park where we took a sort but informative tour of the Indian ruins. A thunderstorm chased us off the mountain. We made a figure eight drive looking for animals past a very highly populated lake that reminded us of the upstate New York lake area. We stopped at a very nice animal viewing area but no animals.

Wednesday we went to Creede for the famous theatre. We saw Swiss Family Robinson and it was interesting. Creede is an old mining town that started with the help of 5 Kansas Theatre Students. This theatre is now nationally known and we understand why. We had hot dogs for lunch at a neat place and enjoyed looking through the town. It is very much a tourist town but funny in that it is much more welcoming than we perceived Silverton to be. We got home around 6PM after stopping to help a trucker   who needed water to cool his brakes before going down a pass. This was a highlight day also.

Thursday our wanderlust caught up with us and we Pagosa Springs  for Denver where we had "hotwired" a hotel for $35 per night. We drove out to Denver on a road we had not taken before. The drive was scenic and pleasant.

We got to Denver early enough to go to a play -August Osage county. Wow!!! Even at half price ( what we paid), the cost was enormous - no not in money but certainly in emotion. The acting was great ......the language was worse than ten drunken sailors in a bar. Most families are dysfunctional to an extent but there was not a single likeable character in the whole play. Three and a half hours of torment. Still Linda and I had very nice day. Before going to the play we had a very nice dinner at Le Central - one of our favorite French restaurants in Denver.

Friday we drove through Rocky Mountain NP up the one way road. We had our top down and near the top, we were pounded by sleet. It was beautiful and interesting. We stopped at the top for a bite to eat and went back to Denver where we went to see "The Hurt Locker" which was an excellent film at the Mayan theatre.

Saturday we went to the Denver Flea Market but did not find anything so left and went to the Denver botanical Garden where we always enjoy ourselves.  We met a nice couple from Cheyenne and the flowers were spectacular as always.  We finished the day by seeing another art film, Tulpan which was not as good as "The Weeping Camel", but still interesting.

Sunday we up with the thought of driving up Mt. Evans to see the mountain goats and big horn sheep only to find the road still had ice and snow on it. We had no desire to drive over a steep and winding road of 14000 feet with ice and snow on it so went another direction. We discovered that Colorado has it's very own version of Las Vegas although maybe a little more like Deadwood, South Dakota. After diving through the mountainous casino region we went on a gravel road up to a pass where we could see and took pictures of the entire Rocky Mountain NP range. We met a nice ranger with whom I struck up a conversation. This was Golden State Canyon State Park, another place we had never been before.  He gave me a copy of he book he had written and autographed it for me. Linda took our picture. He writes under the name of  Alex Cook which is a pseudonym for Claude R. Burnett.

We ended the day by going  to the Chez Artist and seeing another art movie - Tetro - a very interesting movie filmed in black and white with color parts inserted.

Linda had saved about a $100 in change over the past year and wanted to use that  money to buy me something special but so far we had not found the right thing. On the way out of the movie, while she was in the necessary room, I noticed some very interesting art on the walls. one of the pieces was signed and numbered 1 of 1. It was very attractive to me although  not certain why. The price was $120 which was close to what Linda had. I like it a lot and on the spur of the moment, Linda purchased it for me. It is one of my treasures.

The next day we drove home after a long and slightly more expensive than planned trip. It was an unusual trip for us  but also both a nice time and unexpected pleasure.