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. 

Canon City, CO (08-03-20)

 First, I just need to say that the first N is supposed to have a tilde over it- I searched for at least 2-3 minutes for a way to make it so, and gave up.  That’s ok though, the town didn’t even add it until 1994.  Cañon City.
There, I copied and pasted from somewhere.
Also, we may not have driven down here to go hiking if we knew we would be coming here next, but we booked at the last minute. Our destination from here is a little further north, Loveland CO.

Anyway, Canon city is known for quite a few things- 13 prisons, one of the highest concentrations of mountain lions in the country, and world class fossils, most of which are in museums all over the world.  Oh, and Royal Gorge.












Yep, Royal Gorge is the big tourist attraction here, and there are many ways to experience it- you can cross over it on a pedestrian bridge, a zip line or a gondola, or you can see it from a raft, a hiking trail, or a train. We chose the train and the hiking trail.















The train through the gorge is the same one we had seen on the hiking trail the other day. It’s a two hour trip, which they do 3 times a day.  They offer decent meals for purchase but we went on the 9 am ride and had already eaten. I was most interested in being in the “outdoor” car, so we wouldn’t be near too many people, but when I found out we would have to walk thru 2 cars to get to it, they were nice enough to change our tickets. The train was booked at half capacity so that was nice too.




On the first half of the trip we were treated to a narrative about the history of the area, and we learned the difference between a gorge and a canyon.  A canyon is wider than it is deep, and a gorge is deeper than it is wide.

Anyway, back in the day, the water in Canon City was polluted with chemicals, so a wooden pipeline was built along the gorge wall to bring water down into the city.  The pipeline was 8 miles long and gravity powered. In 1972 the water in it froze for so long, the town decided they needed a better solution.




The second half of the ride was quieter, but we spent the whole time outside anyway, enjoying the fresh air.

One of the other curiosities in the area is Bishop’s Castle. Jim Bishop has been single handedly building this castle for over 40 years.  It’s full of staircases and wrought iron work and even has stained glass windows. The inside is mostly an empty shell.  Or, so Paul says.













 It was also very full of tourists, so I waited outside.  I would love to come back and climb all over it another time though.

After that busy day of tourism, the following day we planned on hiking, and chose Red Canyon Park. It’s owned by the town, and has some camping spots, but it has no actual official,  marked trails. So, although we got out and walked around, we didn’t really do any hiking.















The hiking trail along the gorge is pretty short, and very easy.  There is an amusement park type place along the gorge as well, but its pretty pricey to get in, and there was nothing we wanted to do in there anyway.  So we hiked the short hike, then took some back roads to check out the area.

After a hike or other outing, we often wander around just checking things out. Paul can quite frequently be heard to say "I wonder what's down this road" as he veers off onto a dirt road.

This day we managed to make it over an hour down the road, to Cripple Creek, a small mining town that we have been to before. It was swarming with tourists so we ordered a sub, ate it in the truck, and turned around to go home.

The longer hike we managed to do is called Island in the Sky. We combined a couple of trails and made it 5.5 miles and almost 600 ft of elevation gain.

At some point we stopped for ice cream, but I felt like I couldn’t enjoy it…these people kept staring at me.  Felt like they were judging me

Off to Scotland! (8-1-19)

The morning we left England was the rainiest day we had so far. We hired a car, and stood in the rain waiting for him.  Luckily it was a short wait.

 We had elected to take the train to Glasgow, so we could all enjoy the views of the countryside along the way.














We were a little dismayed when we arrived at the station and saw the huge set of stairs we needed to climb- with all our luggage. And then something amazing happened. A complete stranger scooped my large suitcase out of my hand and without saying a word, dropped it off at the top of the stairs and kept walking. When I looked behind me I saw that someone had also taken Julie's bags from her- so awesome!

Our seats in First Class were very comfortable for our 5 hour trip to Glasgow, where we were picking up our rental cars.

 Getting from the train station to Hertz was a bit of an adventure-the car service sent a vehicle that was too small, so Julie and I traveled with our suitcases on our laps rather than waiting for a bigger one.

Once we had our own cars, we could buy some food, and of course, drink. I was joking with the Hertz agent about driving on the "wrong" side of the road, and she said " it's not the wrong side unless someone is headed straight at you".  Cute.

Its been a long time since Paul has driven on the left side of the road, so we were happy to have Mike take the lead on that first day.

Since our plans did not include a stay in Glasgow, we headed straight to Arrochar, near Loch Lomond.

Our accommodations for this spot were hotel rooms in a very small hotel, on Loch Long. We had a pretty view from our window, which was the best thing about the place. The rooms were small and not wonderful, but we were only here for two days so we didn't care.

The pub attached to the hotel had decent food and we ended up eating there both nights- none of us were up for driving around at night looking for a place to eat.







We finally got our new walkie talkies while we were here. In our early planning stage we decided it would be good to have them, making it easier to communicate between the two cars.  There were several hurdles- first off, they use different frequencies in Europe, so we couldn't buy them in the U.S. and bring them. And of course we had to get them shipped.  Julie found an Amazon locker near our flat in London, and they were shipped there, arriving soon after we did. The only problem was, all FOUR of us forgot to get them! We ended up having to return those, and have another set shipped to Arrochar.













With only one day to explore Loch Lomond, we took a small Ferry/sight seeing boat across the lake to the small town of Inversnaid.













There was a waterfall just next to the hotel, with several hiking trails just behind it. Paul and I intended to hike a longish trail and Mike and Julie were going on a shorter walk. But then it rained. Hard. So hard, I couldn't even get a picture with my phone, never mind my camera!

Our hike lasted about 10 minutes, after which we headed to the hotel to get a bite to eat before the next ferry.








Our captain on the boat was a hoot- telling us tales and pointing out items of interest. He informed us that the waterfall is usually flowing much more, but they have been in a water shortage- it hadn't rained in.......6 hours.  As we pulled up to the dock,  he shouted out "Abandon ship!" because you have to take advantage of every opportunity to say it.