Yesterday was a long, but incredibly scenic trip from Ft. Collins to Mesa Verde National Park (near the 4 corners of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah). We crossed the entire state!
Our trip started by seeing 3 colorful hot air balloons near Longmont, with the rockies behind them. A great sendoff! We drove through Denver to go west on I-70, passing the ski resorts of Copper Mountain and Vail. BUT, a tractor trailer flipped over on the freeway, so we had to detour to smaller roads. Lots of mountain landscapes with the aspens in their golden fall colors. And still lots of ski slopes.
We passed through Montrose, CO and ended up stopping at a tiny farmers market that had a lot of people standing around. We wanted to see what was going on, and found out that they were having their large chili peppers roasted in a special pepper-roasting machine owned (invented?) by a Hispanic guy in town. They were getting 5 and 10 lbs of peppers roasted at a time! Seems they freeze these and use them through the winter and spring until the new crop is ready. We bought tomatoes….from California no less!
Then, over to Hwy 550, the ‘million dollar highway’ through the San Juan Mountains. Methinks it has something to do with the abandoned silver and gold mines along the road. The 6 mile stretch from Ouray south that follows Otto Mears’ original toll road (who the heck is Otto?) is considered one of the most beautiful highways in the US. I’ve never been on a road that had triple hairpin turns, but now I have. Some of the mountains were actually red topped, with gold and purple colored rock down the sides. A keen eye could see the remnants of the gold and silver mines still standing along the mountainsides. We even saw some of the miners’ housing, barely standing. But sometimes, we couldn’t see the tops of the mountains, nor the bottom of the valleys from the road.
This took us to Durango which was especially interesting, excepting the Chinese restaurant that had run out of vegetables, where we had dinner. This town is really interesting with interesting restaurants (excepting Chinese) and pubs, shops - all in the original 1800 era Victorian buildings. We had to stop at the French bakery for dessert before heading out. We passed the Durango and Silverton narrow gauge railroad without stopping. It has coal-fired stream locomotives that run through the San Juan mountains, running continuously since 1881. This is a sure thing for ‘next time’ we are here! (a 9 hr train trip)
On to Mesa Verde where we are staying at a lodge in the national park. Mike in Ft. Collins taught us about elk bugling. This time of year, the elk are gathering their cows (females) for the winter. One guy, many gals. When male elks compete for the harem, they ‘bugle’ at one another to warn the other to leave. We saw lots of elk in Ft. Collins, but the only bugling was Mike and Mark acting like elks. Here at Mesa Verde, we are really removed from civilization. And what are we hearing this evening? Elk bugling!! (its really like a whistle that starts low and goes high. Then we sometimes hear other noises following. Who knows what that is!). So, Mark is taking bugling notes – who knows why.
Food and Drink: L’opera pastry from Jean-Pierre Bakery & Café in Durango. This pastry is a layered chocolate cake with mocha between layers, chocolate Grenache on top. We had this with a glass of port overlooking the Mesa Verde views this evening.
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