S ‘23 Ep. 4–Salida, CO (07-19-23)

 After a week in Pagosa Springs, it was time to move on to our next destination, Salida.

We pretty much exchanged one river for another- but this time our campsite was right on the riverbanks –The Arkansas River.

We spent several nights sitting outside enjoying the river, and the wildlife in the field across from us. We originally thought they were elk but now think they might be deer.

Either way they were fun to watch, as were the rafters and tubers floating down the river.

Our first day started out lazy, and we didn’t even get dressed until lunch time. Feeling guilty, we got moving after lunch and headed up the nearby mountain to hike a short 1.2 mile hike to Agnes Vaille Falls

This hike falls into the “exercise” category.  There were some nice views of the mountains, and once in a while, a view of the water. Nearby Mount Antero is the highest gem field in North America.

As for the waterfall, we aren’t sure if you can actually get close to it or not because the trail turned into boulder hopping, and I wasn’t up for that. Paul went ahead without me for a bit, but came back without having gotten close to the water.

Hike done, we continued up the road and ran into the ghost town of St. Elmo. We came across “St. Elmo’s Fire” although it has nothing to do with any other St. Elmo’s Fire- the movie or the phenomenon. By the way, I did a search on “St. Elmo’s Fire” and it is essentially a weather phenomenon created by a corona discharge from a pointed object such as a mast. It creates a blue or violet glow, usually accompanied by a hissing or buzzing sound. It can be a warning sign of an imminent lightning strike. I guess prior to my search, I associated the name with the movie.

Anyway, the town is a typical abandoned mining town, but it has an active general store that sells ice cream.

On the hiking front, our next choice was the trail “Waterdog Lakes”. It is 3.5 miles with 1100 ft of gain, and we were passed by many water dogs, who were rushing to the lake to go swimming.

The trail was a little challenging with some boulder/rock fields, but overall pretty nice, with a few water crossings, which is always nice as long as there are bridges or rocks.  

Originally we were planning on tubing the Arkansas River, which runs through Salida. Two things happened- Paul popped his tube in Pagosa (and we hadn’t replaced it) and the river is running too high to tube.  Our plan B was to raft the river, which we did.  

We chose Noah’s Ark, a nearby rafting company for our excursion.  Almost all of their reviews are 5 star, which made me think twice, but I can’t say enough good things about this company, and our guide Kohl. After the trip I wanted his name so I could write a really nice review, and that’s what he said. Kole, with a K. He could have just said Kohl, like the store.

Anyway, he was fantastic. Our raftmates were a family of 4 with two young girls, so Paul and I got the rear “interesting” seats. Kohl said there would be times when he would essentially yell HOLD ON, and were we ok with that?

I told him I was nervous but would be ok. From then on he was careful to let me know what was coming up and what to be aware of. As he said to me, paddling is important, but staying in the boat is more important- so, focus on that.

He taught us the lingo of what we should be doing, such as GO TWO- that means paddle twice, forward. GO BACK 1 means paddle backwards once.  “Bump bump Bump bump” means we are going to hit an obstacle hard.  He spent a fair amount of time having us practice things like “HIGH SIDE”. That means the raft is going to flip over unless we all jump to whatever side he calls out- such as “HIGH SIDE RIGHT” . We were all pretty well prepared for whatever laid ahead.

 

As it turns out, we didn’t have any issues of our own, but a raft in front of us (different company) flipped- spewing people into the frigid water.

Kohl guided our raft over to a teenage girl who was in the water. As we were taught, the mom sitting in front of me pulled the girl into our boat, and we headed to a calm spot in the water.

 

Unfortunately, where they had flipped was a very difficult section called the Toilet Bowl. You get the idea. Having picked her up, we were situated in a perilous position just before the toilet bowl, with no room to maneuver safely. Kohl made the decision to offload all of us onto the rocks nearby, and drag the boat back far enough to be able to maneuver the rapids.

Paul helped him pull the boat, which was no easy task.

We made it through with no issues, thankfully, and the teenager made it back to her own raft. Kohl, who was the head guide on our 5 raft flotilla, was very impressed with one of his other leaders who had pulled his boat off to the side and walked up the rocks, looking to assist as needed.

Whew, after that, the rest seemed easy.

The river calmed down over the next few days and Paul and I wandered downtown to watch the tubers and surfers.

Yes, surfers. Salida has created several artificial waves that people use to surf. It’s quite a sight to see- and the lines of surfers actually moves pretty fast.

After watching for a bit, we headed to a restaurant on the water where we watched from the vantage point of our table at the restaurant.

Our final hike before moving on was a 6 mile hike, 950 ft of gain, to Browns Creek Falls. The hike itself was nice, crossing several streams before finishing at the falls.

Once we were done, we continued on down the forest service roads, just to explore, but ended up having to turn around after too many “dead ends”. 

S‘23, Ep. 3- Pagosa Springs, CO (07-15-23)

 We have been to Pagosa Springs a couple of times in the last few years, and this time around, we booked a week at a campground on the San Juan River.

The excitement started before we even checked in. In the office we could hear employees chatting on the radio and suddenly heard “Tell ALL the tent campers to get in their vehicles…NOW”. 

Turns out a young black bear thought the food being served in the campground was awesome, so he was trying to move in. Everyone was trying to scare him off.

Once we were settled, we actually came across the bear. He was in the campsite in front of us, looking for food. All of us bystanders made ourselves look big and yelled, to scare him off. He eventually left. Apparently he came back every day for a few days, but we never saw him again.

The campers who had the bear visiting were a group of 6 rigs traveling together. I forget how many kids she said there were, but they ranged in age from 9-15.  It reminded me of when our kids were young and we went boating every weekend. All of the kids seemed to be having a lot of fun- the old fashioned way. It was great to see.

Our first order of business in Pagosa was to attempt a hike. We took the 3.5 mile trail to Opal lake.

Although I think the term “Opal” is misleading, it is a pretty lake, and the hike was not bad.

We were very happy that our friends Dave and Debby came to meet up with us in Pagosa. They only had a couple of days, but they were definitely action filled. 

Our first full day with them we had booked a train ride on the Cumbre & Toltec Train.

The railroad is a National Historic Landmark. The route it takes crosses back and forth between Colorado and New Mexico countless times ( ok, 11 times), and It’s upkeep is paid for by the states of Colorado and New Mexico.

 

Apparently at one time the state of New Mexico tried to argue that more of the miles it travels are in Colorado, so their portion of the cost should be less-but the way the agreement was written was brilliant- one of the rails is owned by Colorado, and the other one is owned by New Mexico- so they are equally responsible for ALL of the track.

As far as passenger fares, there are several options available, but we booked the one that goes all the way to Antonito NM, several hours away. We also chose the “over 21” luxurious parlor car.  I knew from previous experience that it would be the caboose (easier to keep kids from running through.) And of course, a perk to this first class cabin is that they feed you, and serve you drinks. I got a kick out of our attendant, who was quick to tell anyone interested in coming into the car, that its a PRIVATE car- no entry allowed.

We spent a fair amount of time on the back deck, watching the beautiful scenery go by.

About halfway through the trip we stopped at a small town where everyone on the train was fed lunch. The food actually wasn’t bad considering it was basically a cafeteria. Back aboard the train, we finished our ride to Antonito.

Once in Antonito, it was a one hour bus ride back to Chama New Mexico, where we started our journey. Since it was late in the day, we drove back to Pagosa and had a late dinner at one of the local breweries.

Although that trip could be considered an adventure, it paled in comparison to the adventure we had the following day.  Pagosa Springs is known for it’s hot springs. In fact it has the deepest hot springs in the world, but we skipped that.

 

It also has a river that runs through it- the San Juan River. Our intent was to go tubing on the river. It’s running a bit fast right now, so it’s barely tubable.  After asking a camp host if we could tube from the campground all the way to the last “take out” spot, and receiving an affirmative, we dropped our truck off at the last take out spot- Yamaguchi Park. 

That done, we packed our lunch into a cooler and put the cooler into a “cooler float” attached to Dave’s tube.

 

And then we set off.

 

It wasn’t long before the quote of the day was uttered “ THIS IS NOT A LAZY RIVER”.

And it wasn’t. As we floated down the river at a pretty fast pace, we had to pay attention to the water in front of us. There were many rocks, and we needed to decide how to get around them. If we chose wrong, we could hurt ourselves or pop our tube ( I actually brought along a cheap spare tube, just in case.)

After about an hour we pulled over to have our lunch on the banks of the river.

Continuing on our way, we soon encountered several more rapids. Part of the problem with rapids is that they create a sort of eddy- so your tube just keeps circling back to the rapids- it was actually very hard to get past some of those.

 Debby flipped her tube a couple of times, and Paul did, once. Luckily Dave didn’t, because he had all our food and drink with him. At one point the cooler float hit a rapid in such a way that the cooler jumped out and landed in Dave’s lap.

About 2/3 through our trip (which seemed like 20 miles, but was actually probably 3.5 miles), we came across the hot springs that were adjacent to the river. It was a great place to take another break. Debby fell in love with the hot springs, and the rest of us enjoyed the fact that we could warm up. The river is extremely cold and at this point our feet were pretty much numb.

In fact, the water was so cold we had to stop several times along the way to add air to them.

Warmed up from the hot springs, we dragged Debby away so we could finish our journey. At one point I got stuck in an eddy, and couldn’t move forward, although I tried for quite a while. Finally someone floated by and grabbed my hand and pulled me with them, releasing the pull of the water. Whew.

The last quarter mile had rougher rocks and both Paul and Dave popped their tubes. Luckily Debby and I were ahead of them, and were able to explore and discovered they could actually walk to the truck from where they were.

The entire day was hilarious- because we lived through it.

Debby and Dave had to leave the next morning, and it was mine and Paul’s last day in Pagosa. We spent it groaning and moaning due to the full body workout we had on the river. 

S ‘23, Ep 2- Vallecito CO (07-12-23)

 This is a short post because we weren’t in Vallecito that long, and nothing much happened.

Once we knew our friends Tom and Dianne would not be in Bayfield, we needed to find a campground to stay at for the 4th of July week. Riiiight.  I went online and did a search- I started with a campground we had stayed at before, years ago, and lo and behold they had a spot (they actually had lots of spots- it should have been a warning to me). Once we arrived, nothing seemed to go right. Check in time is 3 pm, but the office closes at 2 pm. Hmmm. We got to our site, which says it includes an internet hot spot. But it didn’t. And there is no cell service here so unless we could be in a spot with internet, we were going to have to leave. Our neighbors tracked down someone who works there, and another neighbor offered us her password for her wifi. We can’t be without cell signal for that long right now, so we were very appreciative.

Instead of leaving, we settled in. Our first night there, a country band played, right in front of our rig. A very nice time was had by all.

The next day we were walking the campground and met a couple trying to check in. It’s very tough to reach office people when there is no cell signal, so we hung out with them while they waited for someone who works there. We all hit it off great.  Turns out they were in a site very close to us. As we were chatting with them, their adult son drove up,  looking for cash because he had found a nearby forest service campsite but they only take cash, and wouldn’t hold the site. Paul was the only one with cash, so we gave it to him in a “pay it forward” kind of way.  She repaid me via Venmo later in the day.

We did one hike in Vallecito, Cave Basin Trail, which was about 2.5 miles and not bad, but nothing of great interest.

On July 4, we decided to head in to Durango for the day. We got there early and walked Main Street, doing some shopping. We found a distillery (what a shock) and bought some moonshine.

The Elks lodge opened at 2 pm, so we went there for a drink before heading back to Main St.  There , we had a late lunch and waited for the parade that started at 5 pm.

It was definitely not the best parade we have ever seen, but the price of admission was right. 

 

There was a drone display after dark but we didn’t want to drive back country roads in the dark, so we skipped it.

And then it was on to Pagosa Springs, CO.

Summer 2023, Episode 1 (06-30-23)

 With all the issues we were having with the house and trailer, I was pleasantly surprised that we actually left Lake Havasu the day we were supposed to.

Our first stop was El Paso, sort of.  It takes us two days to drive that far so we have to stop overnight in the Tucson area along the way. Our good friends Tom and Dianne, up until extremely recently, lived in Bayfield CO, and staying with them for a few days was already in our plans.  But then they sold their house! Not to worry though, they bought one in Sierra Vista AZ, relatively near Tucson.  They arrived there on the 20th, and we arrived on the 21st, about an hour after the moving truck left.

It was nice to get to see their new place and always fun to spend time with them, plus as a bonus, we saw our friends Jeff and Tina. Unfortunately we could only stay one night, but  we will try to stay longer next time.

From there we landed in El Paso, where we spent a few days with Paul’s mom. I wish I could say that all our bad luck was left in Havasu but at least a little bit of it followed us.  I occasionally have episodes of Atrial Fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat, and wouldn’t you know, my heart “kicked out” while we were in Sierra Vista. My handy dandy Apple watch alerts me, and also does an EKG. I sent a PDF of the EKG to my cardiologist, and let her know what my plan was- as long as the heart rate stayed low, I would wait it out, if it got too fast, I would head to the Emergency Room.  She agreed with my plan, so, wait it out I did. It’s not a lot of fun since I can’t walk very fast or do very much.  This bout lasted longer than usual, but finally resolved after about 5 days- after we left El Paso.

The small town of Bernalillo New Mexico, just north of Albuquerque,  was our next stop on the way to Colorado. Our original plan was to spend 6 days hiking and with my heart back to normal and my foot getting better, I was itching to get back on the trail.

My first, and really only hike here, was the 2 mile Capulin Peak Trail at the top of the the nearby Sandia Mountains. The temperature at the rig was 97 and at Sandia Peak it was 67- a huge difference.

There were nice views at the end of the trail, plus we drove further up the road to get a view of Albuquerque.

Although my foot did ok, I didn’t want push it, so the following day we elected to explore the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. The first section of the museum  was about World War II, The Manhattan Project, and The Atomic Bomb.

As I was reading through the displays- and it’s a LOT of reading- I began to wonder how Germany didn’t beat us to the punch with the atomic bomb.  There are several reasons as it turns out- they lacked resources, Hitler didn’t make it a priority because he was more interested in instant gratification rather than the long game, and the German scientists focused more on theoretical physics rather than experimental physics.

In the meantime, the United States was secretly working their way towards creating an atomic bomb. There were three sites in the U.S. that were involved- Oak Ridge Tennessee produced the uranium, Hanford Washington supplied the plutonium, and Los Alamos New Mexico was home to the design and production centers for nuclear weapons. The project was called The Manhattan Project and Los Alamos  was referred to Site Y.

It actually became pretty much a secret city.  The scientists, as well as their families, were essentially sequestered in this make shift military base/town.  Initially, living conditions were very primitive, but as time went on, many improvements were made, and life was more “normalized”. In fact it was so normal that they experienced a baby boom in 1944, creating a severe shortage of diapers and hospital beds. 

The birth certificates of children born there during this time listed P.O. Box 1663, Santa Fe NM, as the place of birth. Also creating a sense of normalcy were things like a youth center, a school, a church, a playground, etc.

Drivers licenses of people living in Los Alamos were secretive, listing a number as a name, and on the signature line the typed words “Not Required”.

After years in the making, on July 16, 1945, the atomic bomb, called Gadget for test and security purposes, was successfully tested at the Trinity Site in New Mexico.

A very short time later, August 6, 1945, Paul Tibbets Jr. and his crew aboard the Enola Gay, dropped the Atomic Bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima Japan, changing the course of history and the nature of warfare forever.

Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki Japan. The reason for the short time span between the two bombs was to create the illusion that the U.S. had plenty of bombs and was going to keep dropping them, with the hope that Japan would surrender. And they did. Fighting ended on August 14, 1945.

The museum didn’t just focus on warfare and bombs, it also had sections about other, less deadly, but just as important,  uses for nuclear power- such as nuclear power plants and nuclear medicine.

There was even a display of the DeLorean from Back To The Future- a car that was “actually” a plutonium fueled time machine.  The use of the car in the movie increased sales of DeLorean cars for a while, but not for long enough to keep the company afloat.

Our final outing in Albuquerque was a trip up Sandia Peak, via the tram. With us was our friend Teresa.

Once at the top we started out on a hike, but my foot wasn’t up for too much so we cut it short and headed back for lunch. The wait for the restaurant at the peak was way too long, so we headed back down to find someplace for a late lunch.

And then, we moved on to Colorado.