RoadTrip: Southwestern Colorado

Megan woke up this morning and was ready for the day to start.  She had been talking about Mesa Verde for as long as I can remember all because as a child she came here with her family and there was a forest fire that started soon before they were to arrive.  The fire closed down the park and they were left pining to get in and she has never been back.

As I followed after Megan to the bathroom to wash up, a deer trotted in between us and Megan was oblivious to it all.  After finding out the showers were only in the main convenience store we brushed our teeth and went to pay for our previous nights stay, as we had arrived after they closed the night before.  There was a new lady working at the check-out counter and because we were so patient as she went through all of our information the manager gave us some free coffee and hot chocolate and a bag of ice, which seemed overly generous but greatly appreciated.

Balcony House at Mesa Verde

Since we were staying in the park we were able to make it to the visitors center as they opened up and signed up for a tour of "Balcony House" and "Cliff Palace."  It was still another 35 minute drive down to the dwellings so we kept on moving down to our tour site.  We unfortunately got stuck behind a slow moving bus as the windy road kept the large vehicle moving at a snail's pace.  But then as luck would have it, the bus pulled off to the side, the 7 cars in front of us all stupidly followed the bus, we zipped by them all and had a good laugh at the idiot drivers in the other cars.

We were still laughing when we started out first tour at Balcony House and our tour guide, Bill, was great.  He made us really think about how life was in rock dwelling, which would have been rough but having a weather proof shelter would definitely have made life easier.

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde

Remnants of Megan's Forest Fire

As for Cliff Palace, the tour was amazing.  The dwelling could house more than 125 people at once and the protection it created was something else.  The stairway up to the dwelling was just little slits in the rock face that was used as hand and foot holds to rock climb up the wall.  Our tour guide here talked extensively about corn the amazing way the Native Americans went about cultivating the best crops to continually grow bigger and large plants.  He also told us that Megan's forest fire (the one she saw; she didn't start a forest fire, at least one that we know of) would take another 300 years before the forest was fully restored to it's full grown state.


We left Mesa Verde and actually drove back east a touch, we quickly stopped that when we reached Durango.  We stopped for some lunch and a walk around town.  It had a lot of shops selling cowboy type stuff and western souvenirs.  We ended up finding RGB Wraps, a little place inside an office building that was making up fresh wraps.  We got them to go because it was such a nice day and wanted to eat outside, or maybe we weren't used to being inside buildings for that long and felt more comfortable outdoors.  We grabbed our wraps and found a picnic table in a park along the river which was covered in cotton from cottonwood trees.

We also stopped at a gas station to check on the oil because the check oil light had come on a couple days prior.  We didn't think we would need to do anything with the oil as we had it changed right before we left but we wanted to make sure.  The oil looked good however, the coolant was running dangerously low so we filled it back up and we were on our way north towards Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Views on the Drive between Durango and Montrose

Views on the Drive between Durango and Montrose

We were expecting a two hour drive, without much expectation for anything else and quickly we discovered we were in for a treat.  The drive between Durango and Montrose on Co Hwy 550 is incredible!  The views of the San Juan Mountains were amazing.  We took our time on the drive, stopping a few times to get out and take in the views of mountains, trees, rivers, waterfalls, peaks, and valleys.  We were disappointed when we reached the edge of Montrose because we knew the drive had ended but from Montrose you had views looking back on the mountain range that were breathtaking.

More Views on the Drive

Looking Back at the San Juan Mountains

We stopped in Walmart to pick up some groceries to make dinner and continued the few miles left to Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  We stopped at the visitors center but they were closing so we just grabbed a map and we were on our own.  We went to the camp grounds and we were delighted to find out that the campsite cost $6 per night.  We quickly set up camp and made a quick trip out of the park to pick up some firewood before checking out the Black Canyon.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

We had never heard of Black Canyon of the Gunnison until the day before we were to leave the Chicago area.  We went to the grocery store to pick up supplies and at the checkout counter there was a magazine of Must See National Parks.  We couldn't not buy it so we used that to give us some ideas and Black Canyon of the Gunnison was one those ideas, and I knew it was going to be amazing just by the name of it, which is why I like using the full name, Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

We were driving from lookout point to lookout point checking out the amazing views.  The canyon is very much worthy of its name; it is black rock faced, or at least the sun doesn't reach the rock walls and they appear black.  The canyon is very narrow at some points only a few hundred feet from rim to rim yet and it is incredibly steep and deep.  At one point the canyon is over 2000 feet down and leaves you backing away from the edge.  There were some small birds that were flying around the lookout points, likely knowing that humans bring food, and these birds were daredevils flying inches from your head. We kept describing it as being zoomed.  We watched the sunset from the aptly named Sunset View before heading back to camp.

Sunset over the Black Canyon of the Gunnison

We made some dinner on the fire and watched as the colors from dusk turned into a pitch black night.  We had some bbq chicken, watermelon, macaroni and cheese with our beers before hitting the hay for the night.

RoadTrip: Four States at One Time

We followed up the long day driving from Colorado Springs to Santa Fe with another long day. We had planned in stopping at Bandelier National Monument before trying to find a small natural hot spring in the area that was recommended by my former coworker.

We started the day off with some breakfast at the hotel, including some bread that we saved in a ziplock bag to use for sandwiches later. Some call that cheap or stealing. We called it trying to be resourceful.

We got to Bandelier quickly and painlessly and this made our idea of getting all the way to Mesa Verde seem like it would be a breeze. Neither of us had any real idea what Bandelier was. Even as we pulled in to the parking lot, we were still confused as to why it was called a national monument and not a national park.

Porous Rock at Bandelier

We had made our way, by car, down in to a river bottom. There were trees and greenery along the stream and white or cream colored rock cliffs. The rocks were incredibly porous and chalky, looking almost like Swiss cheese. After wandering around the visitors center we figured out that an ancient tribe of Native Americans linked to present day Navajos used to live in the area. They dug holes in the rocks to use as shelters. Pretty weak National Monument if you ask me, but I understood seeing how some of it was man made that it can be classified as a monument.

Exiting a Shelter at Bandelier National Monument

We linked on to the back of a tour for a bit before realizing that each time we came to a dwelling all 30 people in the tour would walk in and then walk out, slowly of course. So we jumped in front and started the self guided tour: reading the signs.


Our next adventure was to find the Spence Hot Springs, which according to our map was only a few miles down the road.  It wasn't in the direction of the highway but it was generally the way we wanted to go which was North and West towards Mesa Verde.  After only 1 U-turn we found the parking area for the hot springs which was little more than a pull off from the road with a sign that said "Nudity is NOT Allowed."  I was hoping all the college girls would not have seen that sign. 

Spence Hot Springs

We knew it was a little bit into the woods so we changed into our swimsuits and started walking down the trail.  After about a 7 minutes walk we started to hear some voices and up one last hill were two pools of water each about the size of a large hot tub.  There were 4 people in one and 5 in the other; I don't like getting into a hot tub immediately after some one let alone when there are people in them, so right away I wasn't feeling it.  But we took off our shoes and got our towels out of the backpack and dipped a toe in.  The water was slightly warmer than the air which was close to 80 degrees plus all the rocks in the pools were slimy and/or covered in algae.  I figured I could get used to both of those factors but then I looked around at the people in the hot springs, and every single person there made me feel uncomfortable.  They were having a bit too much fun or too relaxed or too washing their hair, yep a girl was washing her hair.  It was all around awkward so I told Megan that I wasn't feeling the hot springs so we jumped out, grabbed our stuff and left.  I wouldn't even let Megan dry off and put clothes on.  Nope she was walking away from this place shoes and bathing suit, no time to put on shorts or a shirt.


We stopped a minute or so down the trail, a safe enough distance to start talking about the weirdos in the hot springs, to thoroughly dry off and put our clothes on.  Luckily, we made it back to the car alive.  We thought the hot springs would have been much more fun with a larger group so you could dominate the pool and also if the weather was chilly to make the contrast between air and water refreshing instead of a lukewarm bath tub feel.

We hit the road driving towards Northwest New Mexico, home of ... well nothing.  But we had plans to swoop by the most arbitrary monument in the United States and maybe the world! Four Corners!  Where Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona all meet and you can stand in one spot and be in 4 different states.  Don't get too excited, we had a long drive ahead of us.

We were using the maps on our phones to take us towards the four corners because really there aren't any highways in this part of the US.  Our phones kept telling us to take NM State Hwy 126 which meets up with 550 and that will take us to Farmington, Shiprock (which I heard was a really cool "end of the Earth" type place), and the Four Corners.  You know there is going to be a lot of exciting stuff to see when places are described as Post Apocalyptic.

We started down Hwy 126 and it was a normal one lane road with the big double yellow line in between lanes.  Then the double line turned into the single dash, ok we can legally pass now except the road also got significantly more narrow.  A few more miles and we came to some construction, there was no sign for it or road closure and as we pulled up to it a guy waved us to drive on through.  So we skirted passed the construction equipment on the dirt and gravel road.  It wasn't more than a few hundred yards and we were past the construction but the road never came back. It was just dirt.  The lack of road continued for 15 miles and this wasn't a straight, flat 15 mile drive; we were going up and down hills, hairpin turns, swooping S curves all on what essentially was a sand road.  Multiple times on turns, the wheels dug in the sand and my heart sank with the car until we jolted out of the ruts and lunged forward again.

We finally made it back to real roads and celebrated that we didn't get stuck in back woods New Mexico for the next 10 days.  Looking back, had we known we weren't going to get stuck the scenery probably was pretty impressive.  They should think about building a road through it.

We started back down the other side of Hwy 126 and not more than 5 miles after our sand road we came across a serious traffic jam, well we dubbed it a New Mexico Traffic Jam.  

New Mexico Traffic Jam

 After the cattle drive down the middle of the road, we didn't see much for the next couple hours.  Not the "we didn't see much other than the normal McDonalds, Taco Bell, Wendy's, and gas stations."  We didn't see much of anything, trees, water, animals, cars, just not a whole lot out there.  When we did see something it was awesome!  Shiprock which is aptly named because it is a giant rock formation that could easily be confused with a ship had we been closer than 700 miles to nearest ocean.

Shiprock

Another of Shiprock

We stopped on the side of the road to take a few pictures but there was a fence around the entire Shiprock and at this point we were easily deterred by a measly fence so we continued towards the four corners.  We were only a few miles away now and got there by late afternoon.  The Four Corners was amaz...nope I can't do it.  It was lame and depressing.  I wouldn't have missed it because when you are within like 120 miles of it there isn't a whole lot else to see and we needed to break up the day with some stops but it wasn't very cool.  Some Native American groups have built some buildings surrounding the marker and they sell artifacts and nick-knacks from the stalls.

Most Arbitrary "Monument" in the US

We stood on the marker and got some pictures while being in 4 states at once and left to make it to Cortez, Colorado and Mesa Verde National Park, where we had just found a campsite.  It Cortez we choose Burger Boy Drive-In for dinner which we thought would be fast to feed our growling stomachs.  It was fast and delicious and after snarfing down the burgers and fries we were feeling upbeat and decided to try out Main Street Brewery just down the block.

Scenery Near Four Corners

We sampled a few beers and started asking each other the Trivial Pursuit questions they had sitting out on the bar.  Megan remembers this as when she dominated Trivial Pursuit and on one card got all the answers right.  Nothing could top that for her so we drove the last few miles to Mesa Verde just after dusk and we were treated to some amazing views of the Green Table as we made our way to our camp.  Luckily we were skilled at setting up camp because completing this task in the dark was not easy but we were able to do it rather quickly.

Moon, Shooting Star, Mesa Verde