Go to every county in Colorado to make sure we’re not missing anything. The method is to record bird sightings in every county we visit, and they’ll show up as satisfied on the eBird map.
Before this most recent trip.
We had a few counties to go. Missing the counties for Durango, Silverton, Pagosa Springs, Lake City, Saguache, Del Norte, Alamosa, Antonito, and Fort Garland.
The final tally.
That makes Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona; we’ve recorded ourselves in every county.
Out the north end of town to some serious mining ruins.
And from there down out of the high country to Alamosa in the San Luis Valley.
From there it was all downhill through the Texas heat and air conditioning to home at Sandpipers.
And it’s good to be home too.
Haviland Lake to Marshall Park
Over Wolf Creek Pass
And another forest service camp, just west of Creede.
We drove further up to the other end of the Rio Grande.
We essentially live at the mouth of the Rio Grande, where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The headwaters are here in the Colorado high country.
A night at Ridgway State Park, then over Red Mountain Pass.
Ward Lake to Haviland Lake campground
…to Havilland Lake Campground between Durango and Silverton for a couple nights.
Then back to Silverton for the steam train.
Twice a day it chuffs and chugs into town.
Then it waits. I swear that steam locomotive is a living breathing machine. In-between runs it’s at rest, quietly standing by, breathing softly but steadily with an occasional huff. Lingering next to it, I can feel the heartbeat from that massive mechanical beast.
Then it’s back to work, hauling the next load.
See that dark blue line? That’s the road we should have taken. The light blue line….it turned to dirt after we were far enough in that we didn’t want to turn around.
The driving was slow, but the scenery was wonderful. We climbed from an 8,000 foot lake at Vega State Park, to a 10,000 foot mesa outside of Grand Junction. Grand Mesa is the largest flat-topped mountain in the world. It has over 300 lakes and spans 500 square miles. We spent the night there at Ward Lake.
