| Home/On the road/Hand papermaking/Maine Coon cats/Music we love/Bev's gallery/Feline rescue/They paved paradise/What I'm reading/In memoriam/Email us |
For previous entries, please click here. |
Bev's Journal We Proceeded On... Part II: The Journey West |
| 26 October 2002 Dolores River RV Park Dolores CO We picked up our mail in Montrose and headed south to the San Juan Skyway, which took us over the 10,200’ Lizard Head Pass – I’ve dubbed our Ford F-150 “the little Ford that could”! We were really glad that the weather allowed us to take the scenic route; it snowed on us two days in a row at our campsite. We had a window of clear weather, so we grabbed it. From our campsite here in Dolores, we are close enough to visit Durango and Mesa Verde National Park, to say nothing of the Ute Indian Casino! Maybe I can win enough money to pay for part of our trip – fat chance! |
| 21 October 2002 Crawford State Park Crawford CO We left Jackson on Saturday and made tracks through three states on our way south. Southwestern Wyoming is pretty boring south of Jackson (sagebrush and more sagebrush).until you get into the Flaming Gorge area. The drought has been so severe that much of the reservoir has been drained (for irrigation, I assume), but the red canyons are still there. We passed through the northeast corner of Utah and came to rest for the night at a campground in Dinosaur CO. Sunday, we headed south over the Douglas pass and towards the towns of the western slope. Western Colorado is an area we’ve been interested in for a long time; our plan is to establish a base camp near Montrose and explore that town, Ouray and Durango. We are camped at a state park near the Black Canyon of the Gunnison (national park) and our plan is to drive through (around) the canyon on the way to Montrose. The scenery is ruggedly beautiful, marred only by the effects of the long drought. The lake we are camped next to is practically dried up, and stinks of dead fish. Glad we’re only staying here one night! |
| 23 October 2002 Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park Montrose CO We are one of the very few campers at the national park, and not very thrilled to be paying the full price for a campsite since the Park Service has turned the water off. Searching for water and filling our tank using our 5 gallon carriers has proved to be one of the more annoying features of out-of-season camping. We had intended to base ourselves somewhere for about 5 days while we explore the western slope. This campground is proving unsatisfactory, however, so I don’t know how much longer we’ll be here. We drove south to Ouray yesterday. The San Juan Mountains loom large there, and the town is set in a narrow valley with a creek running through it. It’s pretty but a bit on the claustrophobic there. I think that I prefer to view mountains from more of a distance; in Ouray, they’re overwhelming. We are here mainly to see Montrose, which John visited 13 yrs ago and has been talking about ever since. Montrose is an unostentatious little town of 13,000+, the county seat. It’s prettily situated in a broad valley about 25 miles north of the San Juan Mountains. On first inspection, it seems like a livable place, and it’s certainly scenic. Montrose makes the cut for our short list of places we might like to live. |
 |