Pagosa Springs, CO (07-10-20)

Pagosa Springs is a small, upscale touristy town, home to several hot springs, just as the name implies, including the deepest hot spring in the world. In addition to soaking in the springs, a popular pastime is tubing/rafting down the San Juan River, which runs through town.





Unfortunately for those interested in rafting, the river is running at 10% of its usual volume. There are overlooks where you can watch the tubers, but although we stayed for 3 days  we never got out and walked in the downtown area, nor did we eat at any restaurants. We just enjoyed watching the river and hiked.



There are tons of hiking trails in Colorado.  My biggest challenge right now is to find some that are doable for us.  We can’t hike at high elevations, nor can we hike for miles on end, and the trail can’t have too much elevation gain.  Tough parameters to meet in this state, and we aren’t used to limiting ourselves quite so much.

Nonetheless, we found a couple of trails that fit the bill and were still interesting. Our first hike was the meandering trail named Coyote Hill Loop.  Within the first few minutes we saw and heard a young Red Tail Hawk calling for it’s mother.

The trail was 3.5 miles and just 300 ft of gain, as it meandered through meadows and woods.  Very peaceful, and the weather was perfect.

Two days later we ventured out a little further. Knowing it was going to be a long day, we packed a lunch to bring with us.  It was almost an hour drive to our first trail but the scenery was pretty impressive.

Our first hike was the Piedra Ice Fissures Trail.

 It was a steady climb upwards through the woods, till we came upon the fissures- I was surprised at how many there were and how deep and long they are.  Paul had fun exploring, and even went inside one of them.
















We kept going along the trail until we reached the ridgeline, where we had spectacular views of the Piedra River Valley. We chatted with a young couple, who asked me to take their picture. I wouldn’t touch her phone but I had her give me her email address and I took pictures with my phone and sent them to her. A modern, socially distancing solution.

After we left them we made a bit of a mistake.  I had downloaded the tracks of someone who hiked this trail as a loop, and that’s what we followed.  Unfortunately , towards the end, it wasn’t actually a trail.  We had to pick our way through the underbrush.  But, we made it back ok.

From there we drove another half hour to get to the Piedra Falls Trail. Its a relatively short hike, 2 miles round trip, to a pretty neat waterfall.  There’s a small pool that you can swim in, and because it was a warm day, there were lots of people doing that.

This is a very popular trail.  We had to work to find a little area to have to ourselves.

The rest of our time in Pagosa was spent watching the hummingbirds and relaxing by the river. We debated going out for dinner but the restaurants were so busy, it really wasn’t worth it.

Eagle Nest and on to Colorado (07-01-20)

Looking at a map, our goal was to find someplace that looked interesting, where perhaps we had never been and someplace cooler than 90 degrees.  The small town of Eagle Nest, NM- population 300- fit the bill.




The most popular pastime in this area is fishing, and seems like everywhere we looked, whether it be Eagle Nest Lake, or the nearby rivers, we saw people doing just that.

This is one of the tightest RV spots we have ever had to squeeze into, and I don’t want to say how long it took.  But once in, the people in this park are some of the friendliest we have encountered.

 We were told that in a normal year there would be more socializing, but with Covid, they were just doing a distance Happy Hour on the pavilion.















We even had someone play the guitar for us one night.  It was definitely fun and it felt good to be in the company of others.














With a name like Eagle Nest, I had my eye out for some eagles, but we never did see one.

We hiked two trails in our 4 days here.  The first was Oeste Vista Trail. It was about 3 miles and 500 ft of gain, but the altitude is almost 9000 ft, so we were huffing a bit, for sure. The view from the top wasn't spectacular but there was a nice bench to sit on, and overall the trail was decent.









On our way home we stopped at a very well done Vietnam Vet Memorial.  We could only walk the outside, so I never found out why it was here, sort of in the middle of nowhere.

Our second hike was shorter but more fun. The trail follows Clear Creek, with several small waterfalls and a few bridges that crossed over the creek.

Once we reached a pool about a mile in, the scramble started- up a very steep embankment and along a rock ledge. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it past that part, but I did- no pictures though, I was too busy trying not to fall.  Ironically, once we made it past the tough spot, I decide I had had enough.

From the trailhead we drove down the road to the historic town of Cimarron. To get there we passed by Philmont, the 140,000 acre Boy Scout camp. We would have explored more if more things were open but as it was, we just decided to have lunch in the very historic Express St. James Hotel. 






The Hotel was originally built as a saloon in 1872 by Henri Lambert,  and hotel rooms were added later. Well known guests included Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Annie Oakley. During it’s wild wild west days, the common question around town was “ I wonder who got killed at Lamberts last night?”

Its much tamer now, and has a great outdoor patio, and the food was great!













Our visit to Eagle Nest finished, we plotted our course for our next destination- Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Colorado is full of mountains, so it does take some planning. We chose to go up and over Wolf Creek Pass.

This sign along the way was quite ironic, as the landscape surrounding it was definitely dull and brown.

As we chugged up the mountain, with a 7 percent grade in some places, Paul realized that the truck has yet another issue.  The turbocharger that we had replaced about a year ago is not working again, and we crawled up the hill at 30 mph. Not good.  We did eventually make it to the top of the pass, thankfully, but our relief was short lived.

As we started the trek downward, we were bombarded with signs of all sorts, some detailing the location of hair pin turns, others warning us when we were going over the 25 mph speed limit, and yet others letting us know how far we were from the runaway truck ramp.

I was so busy being nervous, I could barely enjoy the gorgeous scenery around us.  Imagine my horror when the truck started beeping an alarm and the “CHECK BRAKE SYSTEM” alert started flashing on the dash.






As Paul was calmly trying to explain to me what the problem was, I literally couldn’t understand him and told him he needed to pull over to talk. Being a good husband, that's what he did, and then explained that there was no problem with the brakes, it was just a bad sensor. Most of me believed him, but I was still happy when we got to the bottom of the hill.

At that point I could pay attention to the gorgeous scenery, and the colors of Colorado went from brown to beautiful shades of green.

The day ended on a high note when we got to our campsite and saw how close it was to the river. Now we could relax with an adult beverage ( or two).

The Start of Summer (06-12-20)

It took us a couple of days to pack up the rig and the house before we could leave.  The vehicles in the garage look like  interlocking puzzle pieces, and still we had to leave a couple of things outside.  Geez.









Our basic plan for the summer is to hunker down, stay away from most people, and do some hiking. But first, we had to do two things. We needed to see our daughter and we needed to check on Paul’s mom.


Our first stop was Indio, CA, where we spent 3 days at an RV resort with Jess and her boyfriend Michael.

Having stayed here before, Paul and I knew this place has a great pool, and lots to do. We checked to make sure it was all open before we booked.









We had an awesome 3 days with the kids, relaxing, swimming a lot (it was HOT) and using the park amenities.  Paul and I thoroughly enjoyed Bocce—we might actually see if there is room in our yard for a court (yes, I am aware that this picture is not of Bocce- apparently no one took a picture while we were playing).













We had such a good time, I wasn’t ready to move on, but Jess had to go back to work.












 Technically our next stop was to see Paul’s mom in El Paso, but we weren’t in a rush so we detoured to Silver Springs NM for a few days. Being at a higher elevation it was a lot cooler there.

We got our “feet wet” with the hiking by taking the 3 mile Pinon Loop trail. It has a spur to the peak that we didn’t take because the trail was long enough and had 500 ft of elevation gain as it was.

Off in the distance we could see the wildfires.  There are a lot of them right now it seems and one of them caused us to cancel our original plans- we were headed to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, but it was being evacuated due to a wildfire.










Moving on to El Paso, our stay there was the shortest its ever been. We stayed only one night, and Paul saw his mother for less than an hour. I chatted with her outside for a few minutes, keeping a distance between us.

Before we even made it  to El Paso, we had two issues with our rig.  The rear air conditioner is clearly not working well- it cools some, but not nearly enough.  So, we had to make a plan to get it replaced.  The second issue was more urgent, but also, luckily, easy to fix.  One of the tires on the truck started to separate, but the local Discount Tire had the tires we needed.



From El Paso it was a straight shot to Albuquerque NM. At this point we were still formulating a plan for the summer.  Not that we plan a lot, but I wasn’t sure how busy RV parks would be so I didn’t want to leave reservations to the last minute- less stress that way.  We decided to kill 3 birds with one stone so to speak.  We knew we were going to want to see our friends Tom and Dianne in Colorado, so we ordered an air conditioner to be sent to their house, and told them we would be there by the 4th of July. Now we didn’t have to worry about reservations for the holiday!


While in Albuquerque, we managed to get in another hike, albeit a short one. We hiked 2 miles of the Piedra Lisa Trail which is part of a large web of trails. I didn’t think the trail was that bad but apparently I didn’t think it was that good because I didn’t take any pictures!

Sitting in our campsite one day we looked at the building next door and realized it was a brewery.  A brewery with OUTDOOR seating.  I looked at their website and they were requiring masks and reservations, and each party could stay for 90 minutes.  Reservations made, we had our first meal at a restaurant in 3 months!








The view was very relaxing and so was the meal.  I tried two of their Amber beers and liked both.  When it was time to pay, they provided us with a QR code and we paid online, no contact needed.