Focus on One of the Four Corners: Colorado!

The Animas River from the Durango-Silverton Railroad,

Cascade Canyon, Colorado, April 10, 2010

You may remember we stopped at the Four Corners monument back in January, when we looped through southern Utah and Monument Valley on our way to Canyon de Chelly in northern Arizona. But it was too cold with too high a risk of snowy travel to go further north then .... we couldn't even find a campground that was open in Durango, for example. But we thought this time in April would be a good time to go back and see southern Colorado. You can decide how right we were!

But first we had to get there. We left Tecopa Hot Springs south of Death Valley (California) on Wednesday, April 7. Our goal was to stay in Flagstaff that night, and then make it to the Durango, Colorado area the next day. We drove briefly on I15 again, but soon took off across the desert toward Searchlight, Nevada, adding our 41st state.

All of a sudden we found ourselves amid dozens of Joshua Trees. We had missed Joshua Tree National Monument near Palm Springs, so I was happy to be on what turned out to be labeled some sort of Joshua Tree Highway!

This ended up being near Cottonwood, on the Colorado River, a place our church youth group used to go for water skiing camps. We filled up with diesel in Searchlight at a very pleasing price: $2.91, the cheapest we'd seen since January 18th, in northern Arizona.

We slowly descended and found ourselves moving toward the river. Laughlin, Nevada, with high-rise casinos and gambling riverboats came into view, and our first glimpse of the mighty Colorado River.

Within just a few miles we made it to Interstate 40 at Kingman, and then it was a straight 145 mile shot to Flagstaff where we stayed at Black Bart's RV park for the night.

Though we knew it would be a big drive, we wanted to make it to Durango that night. We had a couple of detours. First of all we had to find the post office in Flagstaff. Black Bart's had had a good internet connection, and we had called our accountants. Our tax return was ready and our signature authorization for electronic filing could be printed from our EMail and sent in. We have a nice printer here in Buster, so got that business taken care of. We used Google Maps on my iPhone to find the post office .... and, presto ..... taxes are taken care of.

The next detour was more fun. Gary was driving along the road when he saw a sign that said "Sunset Crater Volcano", and he remembered climbing up the side of it when he was on the trip with his mother and two brothers in 1953. He wanted to do it again .... with Liz. I skipped this as I was afraid of slipping on the loose volcanic shale.

Gary and Liz at Sunset Crater Volcano, April 8, 2010

(they wear their cowboy hats a lot, don't they?)

At the Visitor Center they learned that you can no longer climb up the side of the volcano ..... too much destruction was taking place with so much hiking. But the ranger was happy to meet someone who had done it 57 years ago, and shook Gary's hand. Gary and Liz were able to take a shorter trail for a survey look at the inactive volcano.

We continued up Arizona 89, passing Cameron -- gateway to the east entrance to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon -- and past Tuba City -- gateway to the Hopi Mesas. Our good friends Andrea and Ken Hjelm had told us of their dear friends living at Hotevilla, the first Hopi mesa. It's a beautiful area. We turned east at Tuba City, and once again found ourselves on US 160, which would take us past Kayenta, AZ (we'd been there in January), on to the Four Corners area, and northeast to Cortez and Durango, CO. The Four Corners monument was closed for renovation, so we were happy we'd had our pictures taken back in January.

It was a long day of driving, and we were unable to make phone contact with the campground we wanted to stay in in Durango ... it was actually the only one our directory said would be open by early April. So we stopped at the KOA in Cortez. This terrain seen late on the 8th gave us a glimpse of the fascinating country we were heading in to.

Friday, April 9

This day was largely spent getting ourselves situated for our visit to southern Colorado. We had left about three messages at Alpen Rose Campground in Durango, and the alternative in town didn't seem like someplace we wanted to stay for four days. So we decided to drive over there, check things out in person, and collect our mail. Unfortunately, our mail wasn't there yet, but we were able to confirm that Alpen Rose was indeed open, and would be a good base for our visit to the Colorado southwestern corner. We saw those beautiful southern Rockies, the San Juan mountains in the distance, and looked forward to some great mountain adventures.

Saturday, April 10

I really wanted to ride the narrow guage Durango-Silverton railway, but that classic route doesn't run in the "winter" ..... the route doesn't open until June to allow for snow to melt. But the "winter" route runs the same track up the Cascade Canyon, following the Animas River. It's official name is the Rio de los Animas Perdidas or River of Lost Souls!

We slowly made our way north out of Durango and climbed into the granite canyon. At first the water had a tinge of green in it, but as we got higher and higher into the canyon, it turned very yellowish-brown ..... full of springtime minerals and runoff. You can see the steam drifting away as we puff along!

We saw the most interesting thing. As we neared a clearing, Gary and I both saw a squirrel with REALLY LONG EARS. It was funny, just at the edge of the clearing, that we both noticed it. When we got home, we googled -- "squirrel with big ears" and found out it was an Abert's squirrel. Isn't it interesting looking? (I got the picture from the internet!)

When we got to Cascade Creek, we stopped and the train was turned around on a spur and we ate our lunch that we packed. It was a little chilly, but it tasted delicious out in the fabulously clean air and evergreens.

Because it uses steam, the train had to stop at a water tank, conveniently situated next to a mountain stream, to take on water.

We had a beautiful ride back, appreciating the late winter beauty with snow along the rushing water. We were tired, and while had planned to go out to dinner, decided to just go "home" and find something which we did. We had cable at Alpen Rose, so tuned in to an NCIS "marathon" on USA ... we were tucked in for the night.

On Sunday, April 11 we set out in the car about noon. We only had about 200 miles as our goal ... the loop, known as the San Juan Skyway, from Durango up to Silverton, over the $1,000,000 highway to Ouray, around to Telluride, and back down. But we knew we wanted to take our time, so we packed a little bag and planned to stay overnight and take two days to make this loop. The morning dawned beautifully (we really have been very lucky with weather), and we saw these horses in the pasture outside Buster's window.

About 20 miles up Route 550 you come to Durango Mountain Ski Resort or Purgatory. We were surprised at how much snow was still around on April 11, and felt like we were just pushing the edge of the visiting season. We already told you how the railroad wasn't open all the way to Silverton, and lots of summer tourist spots weren't up and running yet.

As you drive toward Silverton, the San Juans get higher and more dramatic. And while the roads were clear, we still saw and heard a few people snow-mobiling in the mountain passes. The view down on Silverton was stunning as we descended.

Million dollar highway is a name often given to all of US 550 from Silverton to Ouray, but it technically applies only to the 6-mile section south of Ouray that follows Otto Mears' (a miner and entrepreneur) original toll road. It ranks among the nation's most spectacular scenic drives, and it doesn't disappoint. The origin of "million dollar" is disputed. It may come from the speculation that the road, through narrow gorges by steep cliffs, cost $1,000,000 per mile to build in the 1920's, OR that there is a million dollars of gold ore in the fill dirt in the road!

The town of Ouray was in a similar state of unpreparedness for tourists. One little Bistro looked open, but the owners were simply cleaning up the patio from the long winter. We did find a bagel/coffee shop still open for lunch and, of all things, they had an open mike! A nice 65+ year old man, who seemed to be fulfilling a lifelong dream to be a coffeehouse singer, sang a pretty good rendition of both Beatles and his own composition: Botoxy Baby!

Ouray seemed like a great mountain town with tons to do in the summer, too: hiking, jeep riding, hot springs, rock climbing, and in winter, ice climbing!

After lunch, the drive to Telluride through Ridgway was equally beautiful. We seemed to be inching higher and higher.

The drive along the San Miguel River as you come into town on the spur from Colorado 145 is especially lovely (above).

Telluride was another story of transitional seasons. The chairlifts and gondolas has just closed the week before, and the ONLY hotel we found in town that was open was The Hotel Telluride. A resort spa (we wanted a pool) had just closed down for two weeks to prepare for the summer season. But fortunately we did find a room. And, fortunately, it was really nice. Great cushy beds with fluffy comforters! We looked right out on the ski runs from our balcony! Gary went out and found a Mexican restaurant and brought us back "take out" as we watched a movie. Even finding someplace for dinner in this "down time" was a challenge.

Monday, April 12

We slept in a little, pulled ourselves together (great shower), and once again visited with the desk clerk, the only human we saw from the time we checked in until we checked out! She recommended Maggie's for breakfast, and was right on. I had huevos rancheros and Gary had huevos machaca, a similar burrito/egg scamble with shredded beef.

We had speculated that there must be an airport/airstrip near-by or else there's no way all the celebrities you read about would come to Telluride .... it's too difficult to get there by land. So we searched around a bit and found it ... the valley is open to the west, so as long as you can take off and land from that direction, it looks fine.

While we didn't actually read the history of the area, it seems that what happened is that as Telluride got popular, there was only so much you could develop as the town is cradled by the mountain and the mountain, of course, has only a finite number of ski runs. So they developed another mountain .... Mountain Village ... which you see below. It appears very planned with many ski in/ski out condos, a golf course, gorgeous big homes, and a free gondola that goes from Mountain Village to the ski area at Telluride so folks can park free in Mountain Village, declogging the streets of the smaller original town. As you can see, there was still enough snow (though skiing was closed for the season here, too), to outline their paths down the mountain.

We returned on the little spur that had taken us to Telluride, and continued south on 145, continuing along the San Juan Skyway. The scenery also continued ...... one majestic peak after the other this time traveling along the Dolores River canyon.

We ran into an interesting story at a roadside pullout. This was the site of the first commercial use of electricity. A power plant, the Ames Power Plant, had been built deep in the chasm along one of the forks of the San Miguel River in 1891. Lucien Nunn, who had built the power plant, was also the manager of the Gold King Mine. He, being the good manager he was, was concerned about the $2500 a month he was spending to haul coal into the mine site to burn for power. He decided to string power lines the 2.5 miles from the power plant to the mine and harness the new energy .... electricity. At the time there was still considerable debate about whether AC/alternating current, advocated by Nikola Tesla, was the better and safer choice over DC/direct current, advocated by Thomas Edison. He cut his energy bills to less than $500 per month!

As we drove down the canyon, we saw some beautiful (still wintry) images of the Dolores River. We had started to hear about Father Escalente (Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument) and this roadside marker was our first introduction. You'll hear more about this in the next blog. Fathers Dominguez and Escalente of Spain were early (1776!) missionaries who were exploring what has come to be known as the Santa Fe Trail, a link from the Spanish mission centers at Santa Fe, New Mexico and Monterey, California.

We picked up our mail when we returned to Durango, and had a quiet day on Tuesday, April 13. We did the laundry and hung around as Liz had engaged a couple of girls from Crested Butte who were visiting with their parents. Katherine, a little older, and Savannah, a little younger, helped Gary and Liz with their science experiment: a volcano. They constructed a "cone", and used baking soda exposed to vinegar to make a bubbling mini-explosion. Fortunately, it was a nice enough day that all of this took place outside on the picnic table!

On Wednesday, April 14, we made preparations to leave. I had to drive to the parking lot of the City Market for a 90 minute conference call with Women's HealthSource, but I was glad I did. It was very productive, and it's always fun for me to reconnect with my friends and the project. Gary packed up and got Buster ready to roll and we rolled out before the 11 o'clock check out time.

We felt we had certainly nudged the seasonal envelope for a visit to the scenic San Juans, but we were happy to see the grandeur accented by snow, too. We had thought, and believe were proved correct, that we should reserve Rocky Mountain National Park, even further north, for later in the spring, so we'll do that in later May.

Now we move on to the Colorado Plateau, which I knew little about before now, but we were interested in what we could learn about this geologically unique place. It's fascinating.

Talk to you soon,

Julie, Gary and Liz

The Eastern Sierras and Death Valley

Sunset over Mt. Whitney and the Eastern Sierras, April 3, 2010

Spring flowers in Death Valley, April 6, 2010

It was bittersweet to drive away from Polly and Chris' home, their great kids, and not think about when we'd see them again. All the other times, we knew when we were coming back. But we're talking about going to Hawaii to our timeshare at the end of July, and we so hope they all can make it.

It was Thursday, April 1st (Polly and Chris' 6th anniversary .. see about that in the last post), and we had visited Ontario, California, my father's boyhood and my parents early married life home (see Roots!). We had thought that we would head back up to central California and catch Yosemite, but the forecast scared us off: snow. I had made a reservation for Easter Brunch on the 4th at that beautiful Ahwahnee Hotel, and unfortunately they had a 7 days cancellation policy, so we hoped someone else enjoyed our Mimosas and eggs benedict!

We felt if we headed toward Death Valley we could adapt to the weather; there certainly wouldn't be snow there! Interstate 15 passes right through Ontario, so it was easy to pick it up going northeast. We knew we wanted to go north along the base of the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains on US 395, and there weren't a lot of RV camping choices along there. So we set Lone Pine as our goal, but needed an intermediate stop. We picked the KOA in Barstow, right on I15, and we would have to backtrack a bit to the 395 junction. But I saw on the map that Calico, the ghost town was nearby, and I remembered going there as a girl. So we had to go and did on

Friday, April 2nd.

Calico was an actual old west silver mining town. It boomed in 1881 through 1887, and one of the most interest facts was the population: 1881 - 40; 1882 - 300; 1887 - 1200; 1893 - 300; 1951 - 10; 2001 - 8. "Like most towns of the early West, when the price of silver dropped from $1.31 an ounce to 63 cents, Calico became a ghost town." Calico was preserved by Walter Knott of Knott's Berry Farm, and in 1966 he donated it to the County of San Bernardino.

We looked at all the old time buildings, had a good BBQ lunch, and had the most fun in the games and puzzles store, which had a wonderful selection of complex wood puzzles. Gary picked up some real challengers which he enjoys.

Back down by the highway was Peggy Sue's diner. Apparently it's famous along I15 in Barstow. Their gift shop had unbelievable 50's memorabilia, and this fountain set-up featured a soda jerk that looked like Michael Jackson. The actual diner, on the right, was also completely decked out in 50's stuff.

We found our way back to the junction of I 15 and US 395, and headed north. Gradually we saw the Sierra Nevada's start to rise higher and higher on our left, to the east. The mountains got higher and higher and more majestic, with more and more snow caps. We were so pleased to find Boulder Creek RV Resort at the south end of Lone Pine which was very nice with all the services we wanted. They couldn't help it that there was minimal cell phone service (in general we have run into more and more problems with AT&T coverage in the rural southwest; but I hear people complain about Verizon, too. I don't know.) It was pretty chilly that night in the shadow of Mt. Whitney.

Saturday, April 3rd was the day we drove to Bishop and Mammoth Lakes in the car. I wrote about some of the return to this area in Roots! as my family had vacationed here in the mid-'60s. We passed through Lone Pine and looked up to see Mt. Whitney looming down on us. You may remember that before Alaska was a state, Mt. Whitney was the tallest peak in the United States at 14,505 feet. My good friend, Carolyn Hebbel, has climbed it about 10 times I think. That's impressive! (up and down from the portal in a day, leaving about 5 in the morning!)

Lone Pine also has a Cowboy Movie museum, because a bunch of cowboy movies were made in the area. They've had cowboy film festivals here, and it's even the theme of a great afghan which we had to have (see below).

We drove north to Bishop looking for the Stephen Willard print, shopping at the Toggery, and ending up at Mammoth Lakes and seeing the snow capped Crystal Crag. There definitely was more and more snow as we went up 395, and it reminded us what we would have been in for had we gone to Yosemite. Here, the valley towns are lower and only subject to rain, but in Yosemite we might have had to go in and out of the valley on treacherous roads, so we were glad we chose the eastern slopes.

On the way back to Lone Pine, we stopped at Keough's Hot Springs which is the largest hot springs pool in the Eastern Sierras. The historic pool was built in 1919 and is kept at 104 degrees. It was fun popping back and forth in the near freezing air to the even hotter therapy pools and back to "cool off" and do chin-ups! Sorry the close up is out of focus, but I was just about running to get back into the water!

They had a little new age/spa product gift shop, and Liz wanted to start practicing her massage skills (fine with us!!). So she got "Lizard Lustre" lotion (we're calling her Lizard sometimes), and a spray called "Sleep Soother." Gary got a very zen bamboo wind chime that he put up by his driver's seat when he's not driving, i.e. when we're parked.

We stayed until about 7 pm, and as we drove back to Lone Pine caught the western sun going down behind Mt. Whitney and its neighboring peaks. It was lovely, and I wanted to leave it up top to represent the Eastern Sierras. Tomorrow we would drive east, over the Panamint Mountains into Death Valley.

Sunday, April 4

Sunday was a day we avoided trouble because of Gary's gregariousness in the RV parks. I stay a little more to myself (I'm never going to see these people again, and I'm, surprisingly, not much on visiting with strangers just for the fun of it). Anyway, Gary was visiting with one of our neighbors who had a similar size motorhome, and he said we shouldn't drive the motorhome down the steep, curvy road which enters Death Valley from the west. He suggested we cross the Panamint Mountains in the car, see what we wanted to see in the west and north side of Death Valley, and then drive the motorhome around to the south entrance and park it or drive it in from that direction. It sounded like a good idea to us.

We drove through Lone Pine, and then headed east and up into the mountains. At the summit, there was Father Crowley overlook, The Padre of the Desert who had ministered in the early part of the last century to folks in the Eastern Sierras and Death Valley. The view is impressive:

It is such an area of contrasts. Remember, the day before we were looking at the highest point in the lower 48 states, and today we were traveling to the lowest, Death Valley. Everywhere one looks you see evidence of the work of water and erosion and various geologic levels being laid down one on top of another. These were some of the vistas we saw on our drive to Stovepipe Wells.

We checked out the various hikes (it was a pretty nice day, in the high 70's), and chose the hike up Mosaic Canyon, a marble rock canyon (i.e. slippery!). Its description was a little concerning to me as it said one would need to scramble and climb up rock, something I wasn't sure I could do after my knee surgery. But with the help of a nice walking stick Gary had bought me in Yosemite two years ago, I did quite well. It was beautiful.

The little brown lizard you see on the right is a chuckwalla (although the one we saw here had stripes on its back, and the brochure showed the chuckwalla without stripes).

It was interesting to see up close the very different layers from very smooth marble and coarse aggregate. Particularly note the background behind Liz in the picture on the right. The big picture is just of our hiker!

Stovepipe Wells is at Sea Level (see sign). Just beyond it is the Salt Creek Interpretive Trail where, when we looked hard, we could see the tiny pupfish, descendants of creatures that flourished in the basin's ancient lake at least 12,000 years ago. The spiky plants on the right look stuck on the desert floor as so much of the surrounding, supportive topsoil has been wind swept away.

The sand dunes were also impressive.

We drove home through Emigrant Pass to Wildrose, and then took a dirt road to the Panamint Valley. The clouds and setting sun's shadows made an interesting additional pattern to these already beautifully patterned mountains. It was such an interesting day, and even though there is a lot about Death Valley (including the name!) that sounds forboding, it is an eerily beautiful and extraordinarily interesting place. We planned to see some more entering from the south in another day or two.

Monday, April 5

It was a bright morning when we drove back south on US 395 on our way to the south entrance of Death Valley. In the Boulders RV Resort office, we had seen a very cool afghan celebrating the charms of Lone Pine. Even though the sign said they were on sale there, actually they were sold out. But the attendant kindly called around and discovered they were still on sale (they were first made about 8 years ago, I think) at the Lone Pine Drug Store. Indeed they were; they asked for cash as the proceeds go to a local philanthropy. You can see it is very cool, with Mt. Whitney, cowboy movies, etc.

It had rained the night before in Lone Pine, and so the snow level on the mountains was lower as we travelled south. It was unbelievably windy, and Gary once again did a phenomenal job driving that 40' bus down a two lane road like a professional. We moved down to Kramer Junction colloquially called four corners (where 58 goes east from US 395), and turned east. We were struck as we moved down the road and hit Interstate 15 with the spontaneous dust storms that sprung up all around us, all the time. It is the Mojave Desert, after all.

We turned off I15 at Baker (just after Zzyzx Road!)

and headed up 29 to Tecopa. I particularly wanted to go there because, again, it was a memory from the past. My mother's sister, my Aunt Dorothy and her husband Uncle Roy LOVED the desert, and used to pull their darling Airstream trailer to the California desert from Oregon, and for a number of years, that was Tecopa Hot Springs. I saw that this was just outside Death Valley, and we made that our target.

The springs pools are divided into men's and women's bath houses. I remember going in the women's bath house back in my early 20's with my mother and Aunt Dorothy. One goes in nude, and this was the first time I had been nude with other adult women. The baths are said to be healing, and it was the first time I had ever seen a woman with a surgically removed breast. It was very startling .... and I never forgot it.

I was told at this visit that "the international spa community has the unofficial opinion that Tecopa's natural water is rated best in the world"; formerly it was thought that Baden-Baden in Germany was the best, but now Tecopa enjoys that ranking!

We had to delicately handle the issue of nude bathing with Liz. She wasn't at all sure she was ready for that at age 9, and I was, of course, very respectful of that. I asked her whether she was more concerned about seeing nude women, or being seen herself. She, appropriately said, "BOTH!" Fortunately there was an option to rent a small private pool where the three of us could go in with our swimsuits on, so that's what we did. The next morning I went back to the Women's Pool and once again experienced that fabulous 104 degree water, the pleasure of which is moderated by self-consciousness! The facility is very modest, as you can see.

We set off on the morning of April 6th for our exploration of Death Valley from the south. But first we stopped at China Ranch Date Farm. This was very interesting with a great story. In the 1890's a Chinaman, Ah Foo, came to this valley from the Borax works and established a ranch to raise livestock, hay, fruits and vegetables to help feed the silver miners and their draft animals. In the 1900's he mysteriously disappeared and over the next 90 years a number ranching efforts failed. In the 1990's the current owners started date farming and have been very successful with that. The date palms are beautiful. They have a beautiful little cactus garden, a very interesting gift/antique store (Gary spent a lot of time looking at buffalo skulls!), and a fabulous bakery. We bought the YUMMIEST date cookies, date-nut bread, and shared a date shake!

We then went north to Shoshone, and over the Amargosa Range to Ashford Mill. We had been told that this would be the area of Death Valley where we might find the most wild flowers and we saw some lovely ones (see top photo, too).

The road next led us to Badwater Flats, the lowest point on the North American continent at 282 feet below sea level. It is a huge dried up salt water sea.

It was so freaky to look up on the side of this rocky mountain and see SEA LEVEL among the rocks high above you. (Look for SEA LEVEL at left edge of rock picture below about 1/3 of way up from bottom).

Further on down the road was a short hike up to a very pretty natural bridge. Liz explored a narrow little slot.

Right after Natural Bridge was the turn off for the one way 9 mile loop road, Artists Drive taking us to Artist Palette. It requires no explanation!

Soon we came to that welcome oasis, Furnace Creek. We had hoped to eat in the dining room of Furnace Creek Inn, but we'd have had to wait an hour for the dining room to open. So we moved on to Furnace Creek Ranch and found the Wrangler Steak House just opening for dinner.

After being re-fortified, we drove past the 20 Mule Team Borax wagon, and motored to Dantes View. We wanted to be there for the sunset .... a view across the salt flats of Death Valley, over to the Panamint Mountains, and a glimpse of the Sierras beyond. One of those peaks just barely visible in the further range beyond the brightest yellow is Mt. Whitney .... under better visibility circumstances you can sometimes see the lowest point in the country and the (former) highest point in the country in the same view! Very cool!

We felt we had really explored Death Valley (though we didn't drive up to Scotty's Castle .... it seemed a little eccentric to us), and were ready to move on east to the Colorado Plateau. The Adventure continues.

Thanks for reading,

Julie, Gary and Liz