Colorado Springs and around

For the next few days we are staying at a KOA in Cripple Creek CO. It as the distinction of being the highest KOA at over 10000 feet.

Actually it is pretty nice although it is far from Colorado Springs but it was the only place we could get into.

While in "The Springs" we checked out the Garden of the Gods and also drove up Pikes Peaks.

The main reason for the stop was to hangout with Nicole an old friend from way too many years ago.

She is still good at air hockey!

After "The Springs" we switched to a state park just north of Denver.

In a rare occurrence we went out to breakfast at a place someone we met at the last hot springs we soaked at.

We so rarely go out to breakfast that it seems like a treat.

In Denver we walked around downtown and also took a ride up to Boulder to have dinner with a friend of Wills.

Another day we went back to Boulder to hike to this arch. It was a great hike and Tucker was glad to run around off leash.

 In our travels and chores (Finding propane if I remember correctly) we stopped at the Colorado School of Mines to visit their free museum.

It had a dizzying collection of cool rocks and minerals from all over the globe.

It also had displays of lots of the different areas in CO and the rocks you can find there.

They also provide free rock identification. So I ran back to the car and had them identify a rock I think I found on a trip 2 years ago.

It is very heavy and funky and turns out to be some naturally occurring form of iron that probably weathered in a stream.  Pretty cool!

Valley View Hot Springs

The next few days we spent at Valley View Hot Springs.

The name is very accurate as our site is up on a mountainside overlooking the valley.

It was a bit bumpy on the 7 mile washboard dirt road, the trailer was mostly intact when we got settled. Just a few things had shifted during travel.

 Valley views is a bit of a throwback hippie commune kind of place.  They have several natural and man made soaking pools all fed by the hot springs.

The view really is amazing!

 Part of the land trust that the springs are on is an old mine and what is left of the mining town.

We took a guided hike up there in the evening.  At a certain time in the evening thousands of bats are going to come streaming out of a cave. And they will all fly down to the valley to feed on the bugs over the farms.

 While we wait at the cave entrance for the bats Tucker is frozen watching some deer wander around the hills.

The bat show was pretty amazing, I have a video that came out OK. I've never seen the bats in Austin TX but I think this is a mini version. Except we're on a beautiful mountain over a valley instead of a city.

One of the many pools at Valley View, I think this one was pretty hot, they all vary in temperature.

If you put in a little effort there are 3 pools even farther up the mountain which aren't very deep but have amazing views.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

The Black Canyon is pretty amazing, the sides of the canyon are so rugged and steep.

We kind of wimped out and didn't hike to the bottom. You would basically just go straight down to the bottom look around and then hike straight back up.

 We did the park road and a shorter hike at the end of it where we got this view of the area outside of the park.

The steepness of the wa make it dark in the canyon and that is why it is called Black Canyon.

 We weren't allowed to camp in the park because of the time of year meant aggressive momma deers would be protective of their does. So dogs aren't allowed in the campgrounds.  They were also very full and had very few sites big enough for our trailer anyway.

 The deer were really cute!

Tucker basking on the grass at our KOA site. It was expensive but at least it was nice and we had a pool too. We spent the 4th here and there was a BBQ and music.

We also met up with our Airstream buddy Bill and had some delicious Mexican food and margaritas.

Back to Durango and onto the next stop.

Sometimes you just have to have a down day so today we did our laundry and put the real tire back on the truck and re-mounted the spare.

In the afternoon we checked out Cortez the small town closest to the Park.

They turned out to have a great brewery so we had a beer.

 The next day we took the drive back to Durango to see it at tourists instead of Walmart visitors.

It is a very touristy town with lots of restaurants and bars etc.

You can ride a stagecoach, we didn't but I did drive around like a maniac to get a picture of it with the dog riding on the top.

We checked out a brewery here for food and beer.
 

Now were are on the road to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.   I don't remember where we took this but it was pretty.

We also stopped for lunch and coffee in Ridgway CO.

We didn't eat at this Airstream Cafe but it was cute, We've seen a few other Airstreams converted to businesses on this trip.

Canyon of the Ancients

Down the road is some BLM Land called Canyon of the Ancients.  It is a big park with dirt roads and trails that you can freely explore.

We decided to take Tucker for a hike there. Inside of Mesa Verde itself they don't really have hiking trails, I am not sure why.

 The terrain was pretty cool and the best part is you just "discover" small Mesa Verde like cliff dwellings.

Also there were really cool lizards!

 The rocks are pretty cool too.

But there is very little cover, and even know we started the hike pretty early it is starting to get warm.

 The scale of the ruins are smaller but it is really fun to come around a point and see this.

They don't map out in the park info the locations of any of the ruins so it is always a surprise.

 More lizards, they seem to really like to hangout in the rocks holding up the trail markers.

One of the bigger ruins we found during the hike.