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. 

Meandering Through Idaho (08-27-17)

Our sort of, basic plan for the summer was to head to the Pacific North West. But, we got a late start, and as much as we have gotten into the groove of exploring new places, we feel like we are moving too fast and bit off more than we wanted to chew. So, we decided to slow it down a bit when we got to Idaho.

We have only spent 3 days in this state during our travels, and it deserves more.  Part of the reason why is because a lot of Paul’s family is from Idaho. We consciously made the decision to explore some of the areas his family is from.



Our first stop was the small town of Lava Hot Springs.  We knew nothing about this town except the fact that Paul’s great grandfather died here. We immediately fell in love with the walkability and fun atmosphere of the town. Once we parked the truck, we walked everywhere, including the hardware store, grocery store, library, museum, restaurants and hot springs.





Lava Hot Springs is known for their hot springs- no surprise. 

The RV park we chose had several things going for it. It was across the street from the Hot Springs Pools, where you pay to sit in hot water. The temperature of the pools ranges from 102 in the coolest pool to 112 in the hottest.  Hmmmm. 


Our site also backed up to the Portneuf RIver. As we discovered, ( mostly by hearing the laughing and screaming of the tubers) this is a great section of the river for tubing. Having never done that, it was high on my list of “let’s do this!”






With rain and cold temperatures in the forecast, we had to extend our stay by one day in order to have warm enough weather to head to the river, but that tied in to our “lets slow down” idea. We took advantage of the cooler day to check out the museum.


We were searching for information on Paul’s great grandfather.  Although we didn’t find much (they told us to head to Pocatello to find out more) we did see a book about ‘early influential settlers of Idaho”.

We asked for, and were given, a key to open the glass case, and white gloves to wear while perusing the pages of the book. And we did indeed find biographies of Paul’s 2nd and 3rd great grandfathers. Pretty cool.

We finished off the day at the Chuckwagon Restaurant. We understand this is where the locals go to eat, because the food is reasonably priced.  It wasn’t bad.








The following day was tubing day. Because of the rain the preceding day, they recommended that we rent a “quad” tube- big enough for 4 people and more stable than a 2 seater. Anything smaller than that, and they couldn’t vouch for us staying upright in the water. Smaller tubes have a higher tendency to flip.











So, off we went to the “put in” spot. We could only carry with us things we were willing to get soaked.  So, how did I have a camera?













Well, a while ago, Costco had a sale on waterproof cameras, and I bought one.  I tested it out in the pool in El Paso. 

Into the river we went. The first area we passed was a section of the river that is separated by a crude rock wall, because there are hot springs in that area. We actually returned there later, and soaked in the (free) hot springs instead of paying for the fancy, too hot,  hot springs.

Pretty soon we looked up and saw our rig along the banks of the river.

We paid for an hour of tubing, which allowed us to tube this section of the river 4 times. The first time down was a little hairy as we didn’t know what to expect.  I got a mouthful of water at one point.  It was good fun though.

We also paid for the shuttle, so we didn’t have to carry the big tube back up to the starting point.  If we had had smaller tubes, we probably wouldn’t have bothered with the shuttle, but I was glad we had the big quad.

I was less nervous, but had just as much fun, after the first trip down the river.  The weather was perfect- hot enough to enjoy being wet without 

shivering.