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.