Posted on

Durango

Friday. Travel day. We didn’t get enough time in Durango. There are too many places we meant to
explore, but didn’t get to. Guess we’ll have to come back sometime. We had a startling wake-up. Sometimes things happen while we’re on trips.
Presidents get shot. Three-mile islands melt down. John F. Kennedy Junior
crashes his plane. Crummy stuff. Last night we saw a terrorist warning
alert on the news. They didn’t say much about it, just that there was
something big about to happen. This morning we watched the Park owner and
his wife walk out to the flagpole arm-in-arm, somber, and raise the flag to
half-staff. Oops. That doesn’t look good at all. We fired up the news on
the television. Local news. CNN. Fox news. Nothing. Couldn’t figure it
out. Judy got dressed and walked to the office to see what was up. Bubba.
Bubba was up. Bubba, the Boston Terrier had died during the night. Don,
the park owner declared if the flag could get lowered for crooked
politicians, it could get lowered for a great dog like Bubba, the campground
dog. We drove through Durango unhooked. We needed to find some fuel for the
motorhome, and that’s easier to do in town if the tow car isn’t hooked up.
Outside Durango, on the highway, while we were pulled over to connect, is
when Rags made today’s escape. Happily, he escaped to the river side, not
the highway side, and he didn’t disappear into the bushes, he just walked
alongside them, admiring the river, until Judy picked him up. We decided to drive west. West through Mancos. Hot and dry. Scrub desert.
Then a right turn to Dolores. What a beautiful spot. What a beautiful
canyon. The Dolores River Canyon. There is a really nice looking river
bottom shady RV Park in Stoner we’d like to go back to. Stopped in the
center of Rico and had lunch. Several cars passed us while we were there.
This is a secret back way over the mountains. All the way north on highway
145 over Lizard Head pass, and down to Telluride. Lizard Head pass is very
fast and smooth. Not scary like Red Mountain. Beautiful. But with softer
edges. Passed within a few miles of Telluride. Haven’t been there in
twenty years. Then, out and around to Ridgway. Spent the night at the
State Park there. All the spots are reserved for the long Memorial Day
Weekend, but there were still a few spots open for Friday night.
Eighty-degree blue-sky day. And then! Guess what. I have these prescription glasses. I’m a little
slow to adjust to them. I don’t actually wear them, but I have graduated to
carrying them around with me. Well, I was carrying them around with me, and
they disappeared a week ago. Today, we’re in the neighborhood, so we
checked with Box Canyon Falls in Ouray. There they were! And you know what
that means? It means we get one more shot at the black swifts. The black
swifts that were supposed to be there a week ago and weren’t. What a lucky break! Except the swifts weren’t there this time either. We
picked up the glasses, but not the black swift. It’s still a nice park,
though. And we got a different story this time. Different lady. Different
story. The swifts will be here the first week of June. It was a nice visit to Ouray. Judy found a shirt she needed. And another.
Found another waterfall. Not Box Canyon Falls, but one right out in the
open, lunging off a cliff. Cascade Falls. Back to camp for dinner.
Nobody’s on the seed feeder, but the hummers have found their feeder. Black
chinned. Broad tail. Saw our first bats of the trip. Couldn’t tell what
kind they were. Rags was good tonight. He walked the entire campground loop with us, on his
lead. And it’s a big loop. Then, down the trail to the river and back. He
met a lot of people. And a few dogs. The guy with the two boxers warned
them not to mess with a cat that size. He’s a manly cat. Well, except for
that part about the testicles. And he didn’t need any drugs today either. Know what would be really neat? Dual backup cameras. I have that backup
camera that points almost straight down. It’s really handy. I can see the
front of the tow car. It’s wide angle, so I can see the rear end of the
Bounder go by the front end of the semi when I pass. But I can’t see
anything else. It looks like there is room there for another camera. The
monitor even has a switch labeled camera 1 and camera 2. The switch doesn’t
seem to do anything. Wouldn’t it be nice to switch to another camera and
get a birds-eye view of everything behind while I was driving? I’ll bet
more expensive motorhomes have two cameras mounted back there. This is the warmest night we’ve had. It will be the first night we haven’t
run the heater the entire trip. We may even have to run the air conditioner
to cool it down. I didn’t count the miles today, but we probably covered a hundred fifty.
Tomorrow, we’ll want to focus on doing more. We’ll just drive. We plan to
be home to Louisville tomorrow night.