I-40 Homeward Bound

Left Ridgway Monday a.m. about 8:15 (yes!), got diesel and was on the road by 8:45.....long, long road.  We drove 10 hours....through 6 mountain passes and finally got to Corral RV in Dalhart (same one we stayed at going).  On the way home today.  Plans were to spend the night tonight around OK City, but I KNOW we won't.  He senses home and there's no stopping.  We'll see.



We took an alternate route out of Gunnison...Hwy 114 rather than Monarch Pass. So many people on the RV forums say it's such a good way to go to avoid Monarch.....Driver says he'll do Monarch next time.  It was a fairly good road and beautiful drive , but for the first 20 miles, it was constant curves, lots of 90 degree around mountains.  When the signs say 25 mph, they mean it!  No shoulders (driver likes shoulders) but thankfully, no sheer drop-offs ...We had one short, steep pass and then flat the rest of the way to Alamosa.  Raton Pass was the last of the passes.  It's pretty long and steep, but we actually had to pass trucks so we did pretty good.  Ronnie made the comment again....we could not have done the downhills w/o this exhaust brake.  We would have totally burned up our service brakes.  Thank you, Google.

Highway 114

Hwy 114

Several signs like this

You get the idea?

New Mexico

Ran into a bit of rain in New Mexico north of Raton,,,beautiful lightning and really dark clouds.  Rain was not hard, tho and didn't last but 20-30 minutes.  Got back to 90 degree temps south of there...


Slept in a bit today (sorta tired from riding) and on the road by 10 a.m. after getting diesel.  It'll be a long day but this is a comfortable riding vehicle, quiet to a point (rattles here and there but good roads help that. )

Thanks to son and favorite daughter-in-law, yard is mowed so that won't be facing us when we get home.  Just a bit of laundry and then geet ready for next trip at end of August to Alaska.  No blog on this trip...flying light.  We are doing a cruise from Vancouver to Whittier, then train to Denali.  We're checking off one item on our bucket list on this trip....float plane (or sea plane/whatever it's called) to bear country. Looking forward to that.

Til next time....

A

Ridgway: Saturday and Sunday

Saturday:  A day of nothing much.  We rode bikes, then locked them up and hiked a bit around the campground. 

View from the tent camping area

  Across the river and up the mountain is the tent campiing.  Oh my, you gotta want to tent camp bad to get all your stuff up there.  They do have little carts to use wheeling your tent, etc up the hill.  It was a climb….but a nice wide trail. 

We walked the River Trail and watched all the fishermen.  Nobody was doing much good with fishing.  I walked ahead and saw a spot with good access to the side of the river.  Right below me was a big stump and a school of trout.  Ronnie walked up and told me to tell the fisherman across the river (I hadn’t even seen him til then).  Got his attention and motioned for him, so he crossed the river and immediately caught one.  We walked on and when we returned, he said he’d caught three nice ones there.  We visited with him a bit.  He is from Ridgway and works at the Billings Artworks

in Ridgway where they make the Grammys.  We’d seen the place but had no idea it was talking about the actual Grammys, but it is.  Who knew??? 

After a bit, we came back and read for a good while outside.  Weather is so nice, until you get in the sun and it is HOT.  I guess we’re closer to it up here in the mountains.  LOL.   Most of the trails are good for bikes, but there are small  portions that are mountain biking, only....

How to mountain bike ride with a road bike

We’ve enjoyed the company of the little ground squirrels.  They come up when we are snacking and crawl on our feet trying to get a peanut or whatever.

Anyway, that was pretty much our day yesterday.  Could not get back into the jeep….just couldn not.  We leave tomorrow (Monday) so today will be pretty much spent getting things together (there’s not much to that).  I’ll wash another load.  Love this little washer/dryer combo.  Not much washing to do when we get home…have kept up with laundry.  Set it and go and the clothes are dry when we get back. 

Sunday:  Got up and rode bikes and hiked again today.  Watched the fishermen along the river.  Saw a snake and I was ready to come back.  It’s been lovely and we’ve had a good time but we are both ready to come home.  Ready for some flat land.  We plan a different route home.  50 to Gunnison, then 114 to 285 to Walsenburg.  "They" say it's a good road with the pass over 114 about 1200 feet less than Monarch Pass.  So we will try that.  Not sure where we'll spend the night..depends on how early we leave and how long we feel like ridiing.

Ridgway is a really nice place to visit.  I highly recommend the camping at the State Park, where we are.

Well, do I feel like an idiot!  Misread my reservations and we were supposed to leave by noon today!  Someone else had reserved our site starting today.  Geez.  Camp host came aknocking.  Really nice.  He found another site that we could use for tonight so we got moved....less than 15 minutes.

Clouds are moving in and rain is predicted.  We may just find a movie to watch.

Later...A

PS.  FYI:  Be sure and "click" on the blue words....they carry you to a link with lots of info.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

All day in the jeep...oh, we are tired.  Drove into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park via 347 to view the Canyon.  So awesome.  Then we drove down 50 to the West Elk Loop (Hwy 92) which goes on the east side of the Canyon.  Hwy 50 was crammed with traffic (everybody in such a HURRY) and road work...finally got to 92 and realized how far it was around the loop back to Montrose.  Debated (?)  whether to turn around and face the traffic, road work or just continue on.  We continued on.  It was a beautiful drive....no traffic to speak of but a long way.   Here are some scenes from today.

crazy man

Dragon Point (find the Dragon)

Bear or BIG dog???

Not sure about tomorrow.  He'll have to do some serious persuading to get me back in the  jeep again.  He mentioned doing Last Dollar Road again.  After the other trails we've done/started, it's a piece of cake.  

Campground has the FULL sign out again tonight, but by tomorrow morning they'll move out again.  It's been interesting watching people come and go throughout the week.  It's a really nice campground...quietest one we've ever been in.  Except for the mosquitoes....and their nightly attack.  They won't get me tonight.  Don't plan to get off the couch.

Thanks to you all for your comments and emails on the blog.  Love doing it, but internet service is so poor here, it's frustrating to get it done.  

Ridgway State Park

Didn't see any of these.

Yep, we stayed around the campground again today.  Rode bikes this morning on some of the trails around here.  Beautiful day.  Ronnie watched the fishermen in the river and ponds to see if it would be worthwhile to go get a day license.  Saved $20..nobody was catching anything.

We made a run up to WM to get more milk--seems our breakfast of choice has been cereal.  We heard the thunder echoing around when we got in the jeep, and by the time we got back to the motorhome, it was hailing.  Pretty much rained off and on all day.  We just laid around and read.

Hail

R cooked steaks for dinner and that was our day.
Thoroughly enjoyed it.  I think we hit the jeep again tomorrow.

 

Silverton

Yesterday was a "stay at home" day.  It rained and was so perfect to NOT get back into the jeep.  I did some bookkeeping and we read.....late in the evening we went back out to the wildlife area but saw nothing.  Just threw up huge chunks of mud all over the jeep.  What a mess.

Hwy 550

Today we did Silverton.  Highway 550 between Ouray (just south of us) and Durango is known as "The Million Dollar Highway".  I've heard it's because of the million dollar view and the fact that it's built over a million dollars worth of gold.  The view is a million dollar view!  I guess today we did a half million dollar ride because we just went to Silverton and not all the way to Durango.  Cannot believe the motorhomes and fifth

Lots of these signs-even a 90 degree one

wheels that we saw up and down the road and in the RV parks in Silverton.  Crazy.  The craziest?  A truck pulling a fifth wheel that was at least 42+ feet long with a 25+ foot long  boat behind him.  There are actual 90 degree turns on this highway...can't figure how he did it.

It was corkscrew crazy.  We did it years ago when the kids were in high school.  Don't remember the amount of traffic that there was
today.  There was a "Mile High Jeep Club" rally in Silverton this week and the amount of jeeps we saw up and down the highway, the trails, everywhere was unbelievable.  As we came towards Silverton, there must have been 15-20 lined up to go up Bear Creek Trail (Class 5/Extreme).  hope they had a good time. There were jeeps at every trail access.  Everywhere.

Going towards Alpine Loop

We shopped a bit and watched the Silverton/Durango train come into town.  Loads of people.  We ate burgers and then proceeded out on County Road 2 towards the Alpine Loop.  It was a good wide flat road--lots of traffic coming and going.  This eventually led into the 4 wheeling trail towards Engineer Pass.


 We went a little ways up, but  after a bit, we decided that jeeping out here is not for us.  The trails that they use for "jeeping" are what we do with ATV's.  We would have had so much more fun in a 4 wheeler.

Alpine Loop

 Wimps or just old???

We rode the Alpine Loop from Lake City a few years ago on ATV's but never did the entire route from Lake City to Silverton.  We both want to do that (not in a jeep).  We came back through Silverton (another train had arrived and it was busy).

We then took the road to Clear Lake and thoroughly enjoyed it.  There are several campgrounds along this road and some just pull over and camp right there on the road.  The campgrounds are right along the river and very busy. I am in awe at the motorhomes and big fifth wheels that they nestle down these little roads and camping sites.

Road to Clear Lake/Our kind of road

 Rode on up towards a mine and then pulled over and just enjoyed the view.  I did spy an elk up above the
treeline--visible only with binoculars.  Saw several deer along the way.'








We had to wash the jeep off again and came back to the RV by 6:30.  Thank goodness, we had taco soup leftovers--we were pooped.  Hot showers and TV tonight.

It was a good day...sprinkled on us a few times, but nothing like the "monsoonal rain" that they had predicted and that happened yesterday.

Tomorrow is another day.

Ouray

Back road to Ouray

Drove a county road down to Ouray today.  We'd driven through it many, many years ago.  Cute town...much more likable to me than Telluride.  Very down to earth.

Ouray, Colorado

The drive on the County Road was great...no traffic and beautiful scenes.  We did have a very interesting thing (more like wierd) happen.  We stopped in Ridgway for gas and Ronnie went inside...came back to jeep and we proceeded to find the CR to drive... Somewhere along the way, he stopped to talk to Mother Nature and when he got back into the car, he said, "Oh, you dropped your ring."  Then, "This isn't your  ring, is it?".  He picked a ring up from the floorboard on his side of the car.  We have NO clue where it came from and can only guess.  Our guess is that it got hung up on the tread of  his shoe and he carried it to the jeep with him at some point, either the gas station or at the stop on the way.  But that is so unlikely!   So strange.  It fits (lol) and hasn't turned green on me.  It's stamped with Sterling but don't know if the diamond is real or not.  Will take it to the jeweler when I get home. It's a beautiful solitaire.

Ouray must be famous for ice climbing.  There is an area that they actually put water on for ice climbers between these two cliffs....doesn't sound like fun to me.











We had picked out a trail to try from Ouray, so we started out up Canyon Creek Road,  up and up and

Canyon Creek Road

around....we went several miles up the mountain; cars, jeeps, dune buggies,atvs.....coming and going.  It started raining and I began to look for turnarounds....I was so tired of hugging the sides of mountains with nothing below me....and at every switchback, we'd meet somebody.  Geez.  Then we saw a floral memorial on the edge of the road right at a switchback...straight down...accidents do happen.  You see the road disappear around the rock wall and there's  no way to see if anyone is coming.  An eye opener.

This was the turning point for me....no more.

Came back down to the Visitor's Center in Ouray, got more maps, shopped a little and left for another try at

Under an ice flow

back roads (NOT mountain climbing).  This time we headed back to Ridgway; washed the  jeep and went downtown for a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream and then headed  north of the campground for Billy Creek State Wildlife Area....it forms a loop off Hwy 550 via CR 4 and CR 2.  We took CR 4 and was fine for a little while...just what we wanted, then we hit the mountain again and it was a rocky, rough one lane road--not a sheer drop off, maybe just a slide-off, but it got to be more than we wanted, so again, we found a turnaround and came back down.  Got on 550 and went to the other end.  Perfect...wide open valleys, good roads, lookout points for viewing...and best of all, we were the only ones on the road.  Saw turkeys and two deer.l  We plan to go back late one afternoon near dark to see what we can see.  IF the mosquitoes aren't too bad....that's been the only bad thing here...so many mosquitoes and they attack at 6:30 p.m.  like clockwork.

Got back to RV about 5:30 or so and grilled burgers and I made taco soup for later in the week.  We keep expecting "monsoonal" rains  and flash flooding but it's been hot and sunny.  Cool in the mountains with an occasional rain shower.  .There is a huge black cloud coming up now so the rain may be close.

Thanks to O'Reilly Auto Parts, the jeep rearview mirror is fixed.



  And someone asked for a picture of the True Grit Cafe, where we ate a few nights ago and which is full of John Wayne memorabilia

Tomorrow, maybe on further south to Silverton.

Owl Creek Pass

Chimney Rock

Headed out this morning around 10ish to find Katie's Meadow, where the big shoot 'em up scene in True Grit was filmed.  We had directions and maps.  We also watched the movie Friday night and paid attention to the landscape in that scene to help with a landmark.  There was a big rock which looked like a chimney behind the bad guys, Ned Pepper  (Robert Duval, in his younger days) and others so we knew to look for that.  Interestingly, it is named Chimney Rock on the map and we spied it from the highway.  We drove the required 14.7 miles on County Road 10, then 8 and watched Chimney Rock on our right, then left, then in front.  We switched back so many times, but it was a beautiful ride.  Then we spied Katie's Meadow on the left....looks just like the movie.

Katie's Meadow from the end-the bad guys lined up there in front of Chimney Rock)

Katie's Meadow from the front (Chimney Rock to left) Rooster rode in from the right

I cannot understand, though, why they chose this particular spot so far from the highway.  We were on a very nice County road, but t his was 40+ years ago--how and why did they go this far out to this particular meadow....there are hundreds around here.

Stream thru Katie's Meadow

Anyway, it was awesome to stand in the same spot John Wayne, Robert Duvall and Glen Campbell made the famous scene from the movie.     I could hear  Rooster Cogburn saying, "Fill your hand, you s-o-b."  And he put the reins in his teeth and came out shooting.  Awesome.

Cimarron Ridge -we drove right into the foothills-surrounded by these mountains.
We recognized this ridge in a few of the movie scenes.

After leaving Katie's Meadow, we continued on up the mountain through Owl Creek Pass towards Silver Jack Lake .  Now, this is a fairly nice, WIDE, road, rough in some spots and rutted up in others, but it is very popular-especially on Sundays.  There were so many cars, trucks, jeeps, atv's going and coming.  Very, very dusty.  We were constantly rolling the windows up and down.

But the views and wildflowers....

When we got to Silver Jack Reservoir, you could see campers nestled down in the woods beside the
Cimarron River...even saw two older motorhomes.  It would be a beautiful place to camp in a tent trailer or something small (for a couple of nights).  The County road goes on towards Montrose so I'm sure that's how all the fifth wheels and larger campers come in.  As a matter of fact, lots were leaving out by that road.

Silver Jack Reservoir

 We could find no other way out and knew we didn't want to be in that dust, so we turned around and came back the way we went up.  Still met traffic, but not so much.  Saw one deer.

Courthouse Mountain from Cow Creek Trail

Cow Creek Trail

Courthouse Creek

Finally found a trail that we could access in the jeep off the beaten path--Cow Creek Trail.  We took  it and meandered up and down through the beautiful forest til we came to Courthouse Creek....

Courthouse Creek Crossing

....decided to NOT cross it and turned around and came back.

Cow Creek Trail--going home

We didn't DO much, just rode and looked and the gorgeous scenery.  Chimney Rock and Cimarron Ridge (which we can actually see from our campsite) was beautiful.  We drove some little trails just at the foot of the Ridge.


Six hours in a jeep can be tiring, tho, even  if you just sit.  So we came back to motorhome around 4:30.


Ate leftovers, I rode my bike a bit and that's all, folks.

Tomorrow we plan to go south to Ouray by the backroads.


A.