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Cortez

Never ready to leave Ridgway, but it always happens anyway. We meant to visit Ouray while we were there, but didn’t get to it. A scenic drive to Owl Creek Pass didn’t happen. Black Canyon of the Gunnison is only a few miles away, but didn’t make it there either. The scenic loop around through Gateway, Uravan, and Naturita didn’t happen. Didn’t even go to the overlook at the Visitor Center. Couldn’t get past the birding, hiking, and flyfishing. Time to move on. Ridgway to Cortez. One-hundred thirty miles of jaw dropping indescribably beautiful scenery. Fall color at its finest. Green and gold punctuated by red/purple oak brush against snow covered peaks, with a blue sky backdrop. Through Placerville and Sawpit. Colorado Highway 145 past Telluride, over Lizard Head Pass, and the long cruise downhill past streamside narrowleaf cottonwoods and oak brush. Through Rico, Stoner, and Dolores, to Cortez. When we roll in to Ridgway State Park, it’s like coming home; hugs all around. When we roll in to the Koa in Cortez, it’s like coming home; hugs all around, dinner with the crew, it’s so good to be here. Tomorrow, a drive through Mesa Verde.
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Birds

Did I show you our great bird feeder? Picked it up from our friends at Wild Birds Unlimited in Denver. It is heavy, so it is stable, and it is in pieces so it disassembles and travels in a bin in the basement of the motorhome.
It’s just right.
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Ridgway

There is no picture I can take to capture the scope of the scenery that surrounds us, it is so vast. The new moon has set, but I can’t take a picture of the milky way stretching from horizon to horizon. I can take a picture of the deer wandering through the campground, but you can’t see the fawns hurrying to catch up with Mom. You can’t hear the kingfisher rattle its way downriver, the scrub jay and steller’s jay in a calling battle, or see the water still dripping from the fish in the talons of the osprey. You can’t see the face of the chipmunk swelled to twice its normal size with the seeds from our feeder that were meant for the birds. I can take a snapshot, but you have to multiply its impact by a hundred.