Pictures above; BarD Chuckwagon show, the next 2 are of the train ride from Durango to SilvertonThursday, August 21, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Top picture, Caboose at Wagon Wheel Gap railraod station, Cottonwood Cove in the background and our mountain, "the wall". Next picture; our group at the station, next picture the "Cowboy" in the wall that watches us. He is a natural phenomenon! Pretty cool! The next picture is Dave at the museum in Creede and the last 2 are of the campfire for Kate's birthday!Since our last posting, Kate turned 50!! The night before her birthday, we had a group campfire with 15 of our new friends and coworkers! 2 of the guys got their guitars out and we sang songs, told stories and just plain had fun. One of the ladies made a cake and another couple made homemade ice cream!!! The 13th, which was Kate's birthday, we went touring locally, visited a museum, came back early, and went to a farewell party for the former owners of Cottonwooc Cove. This party was held next to Cottonwood Cove at the Wagon wheel Gap train station. The owners, (a couple we had met before), graciously gave us a tour of the historic station! It is 125 years old, completely resored, and is chock full of history and neat stories, including former holes in the wall by a bed...a result of a failed love affair! There were lots of fascninating and historic individuals who passed through there.
The owners, Doug and Ginni also have a caboose that they use as a guest house and a couple of "rail cars". Rail cars are small cars that travel on the tracks and are individually owned. Currently, there is not a train that travels these tracks, except those individual rail cars and the maintenance car. Upon our return to our motor home...we walked the tracks to and fro, there was a package waiting for Kate! Dave knows how much Kate likes lobsters, so he ordered some directly from Maine! Within minutes they found themselves in hot water and shortly there after on Kates dinner plate!!
One day, Kate and David (one of our neighbors), decided to try to get some gold out of our river. The Rio Grande runs about 150 or so feet from our campsite. They say there is gold in it, but it is hard to get. Kate and David set up our sluice in the river and ran lots of material from the river through it. They did get lots of concetrates, heavy material containing gold, iron, and more. After the material is run through the sluice, you take the "concentrates" and further process them. They did see gold in it, but it is called "flour" gold and is as fine as flour and very hard to process. So, the bottom line, is they found gold, but not enough to get rich, so it's back to work in Florida for Kate!!!!
Other adventures we have had include another dinner of hot dogs on a campfire on top of a mountain to watch a sunset, again with a group of friends. Once we arrived, while others set up the fire, and chairs, Kate and one of the other ladies went "mushroom hunting". This is a pretty big thing to do here, once the rainy season begins. The "rainy season" has begun, and it is not terribly awful, most afternoons, there is a shower and every few nights, it rains during the night. It's not enough rain to wash out any roads or cancel any plans. At any rate, Kate and Carol did strike gold, when they got a bag of "Hawks wings" mushrooms! On our way home that night, we stopped in the RV park here and showed them to our local mushroom experts, and we were right! The next morning, Dave, Kate and another friend went into the mountains wild rasberry hunting! Within an hour, we had a large bowl full, so we stopped at the local market and got ice cream. Once back at Cottonwood Cove, we cooked the mushrooms 2 ways; battered, and deep fried and sauteed in virgin oil with garlic and red wine. The lady Kate found them with, Carol, made a chicken dinner and before we knew it, there were 14 of us for dinner; chicken and mushrooms followed by ice cream with fresh rasberries!!
One of the "must see and do" things here is to ride the Durango Silverton train. We made plans with 3 other couples and went to Durango on Monday, went to the BarD Chuckwagon dinner and show, slept the night in Durango and rode the train on Tuesday! We boarded early on Tuesday for the 3 1/2 hour journey over the mountain tops and along the Animus river. We then arrived in Silverton and walked the old historic Western town, shopped a little, had lunch and road a bus back to Durango! Once back in Durango, we drove the 3 hours back to Cottonwood Cove through Wolf Crrek Pass! This is a beautiful pass through some magnificent mountains filled with deer , views, and great waterfalls! This pass is well known for its steep grades of 7% going for more than 7 miles at a time. This road has lots of runways along the sides for tracker trailers who have burnt their brakes! It is exciting, and a little scarey at times!
We are down to less than 2 weeks here, and then we head home and back to work! We want to thank you all for your concerns during the hurricane this week, our home is fine and everyone back there is safe! Thanks for all your prayers!
The owners, Doug and Ginni also have a caboose that they use as a guest house and a couple of "rail cars". Rail cars are small cars that travel on the tracks and are individually owned. Currently, there is not a train that travels these tracks, except those individual rail cars and the maintenance car. Upon our return to our motor home...we walked the tracks to and fro, there was a package waiting for Kate! Dave knows how much Kate likes lobsters, so he ordered some directly from Maine! Within minutes they found themselves in hot water and shortly there after on Kates dinner plate!!
One day, Kate and David (one of our neighbors), decided to try to get some gold out of our river. The Rio Grande runs about 150 or so feet from our campsite. They say there is gold in it, but it is hard to get. Kate and David set up our sluice in the river and ran lots of material from the river through it. They did get lots of concetrates, heavy material containing gold, iron, and more. After the material is run through the sluice, you take the "concentrates" and further process them. They did see gold in it, but it is called "flour" gold and is as fine as flour and very hard to process. So, the bottom line, is they found gold, but not enough to get rich, so it's back to work in Florida for Kate!!!!
Other adventures we have had include another dinner of hot dogs on a campfire on top of a mountain to watch a sunset, again with a group of friends. Once we arrived, while others set up the fire, and chairs, Kate and one of the other ladies went "mushroom hunting". This is a pretty big thing to do here, once the rainy season begins. The "rainy season" has begun, and it is not terribly awful, most afternoons, there is a shower and every few nights, it rains during the night. It's not enough rain to wash out any roads or cancel any plans. At any rate, Kate and Carol did strike gold, when they got a bag of "Hawks wings" mushrooms! On our way home that night, we stopped in the RV park here and showed them to our local mushroom experts, and we were right! The next morning, Dave, Kate and another friend went into the mountains wild rasberry hunting! Within an hour, we had a large bowl full, so we stopped at the local market and got ice cream. Once back at Cottonwood Cove, we cooked the mushrooms 2 ways; battered, and deep fried and sauteed in virgin oil with garlic and red wine. The lady Kate found them with, Carol, made a chicken dinner and before we knew it, there were 14 of us for dinner; chicken and mushrooms followed by ice cream with fresh rasberries!!
One of the "must see and do" things here is to ride the Durango Silverton train. We made plans with 3 other couples and went to Durango on Monday, went to the BarD Chuckwagon dinner and show, slept the night in Durango and rode the train on Tuesday! We boarded early on Tuesday for the 3 1/2 hour journey over the mountain tops and along the Animus river. We then arrived in Silverton and walked the old historic Western town, shopped a little, had lunch and road a bus back to Durango! Once back in Durango, we drove the 3 hours back to Cottonwood Cove through Wolf Crrek Pass! This is a beautiful pass through some magnificent mountains filled with deer , views, and great waterfalls! This pass is well known for its steep grades of 7% going for more than 7 miles at a time. This road has lots of runways along the sides for tracker trailers who have burnt their brakes! It is exciting, and a little scarey at times!
We are down to less than 2 weeks here, and then we head home and back to work! We want to thank you all for your concerns during the hurricane this week, our home is fine and everyone back there is safe! Thanks for all your prayers!
Saturday, August 9, 2008
August 9, 2008 more pictures!
Pictures of Alpine Loop (and old mine town along the way) and town of Silverton!!
Top 2 pictures from the rodeo (US Forestry Service pack animals on display and our group) and the next 2 are from "Copper Canyon".Since our last posting we have more exciting events to report...
We went to the rodeo with our coworkampers, went prospecting, drove to Pagosa Springs, did more off roading, had a visit from my 2 of my cousins (celebrated a 13th birthday) went geode hunting, and had more just plain fun!!!!
The rodeo was a Friday night in Monte Vista, a town 45 minutes from here, right before Alamossa. Again our group of workampers all decided to go together and all 12 of us henjoyed our great seats and the activities.
Pagosa Springs is another neat little town, and they boast hot springs there. If you want they even have tubes for you to rent and float down their lazy river, which is heated by springs. We hope to go and try it one day this coming week!
My cousin arrived on July 30th with her daughter, they live northwest of Denver (about 5 hours away). Shortly after their arrival off we all went in the Jeep to Creede to show them the small town, mines and to get a permit for a walking stick! Thursday, the next day, was her daughter's birthday. We had arranged to go horseback riding, first thing in the morning, the wrangler came over and informed us that he had 10 people going at 9:00 and thought we would get a better ride if we waited until 12:00. So, we hoped in the Jeep and went up the local forrestry road and she selected 2 Aspen walking sticks. Dave cut them down and we returned to the MH. She then had about an hour to peel off the bark and see what she got! Within the hour she found she had 2 pretty cool looking walking sticks! 12:00 and we were off for our horseback ride and upon our return, we were told we could go for a raft ride, if we wanted. So, off 3 of us went, Dave stayed back with our dog and their new puppy. 2 hours later, we were 7 miles down the river (the raft ride is shorter now that the river is lower and running much slower! As we have mentioned before, this river is really a float trip, they told us that it isn't even rated as a white water river, and is actually classified as "blue water". Back at the Motorhome, we got changed and headed over to the restaurant for dinner and coconut cream pie! After that, we got back to the motorhome and a campfire and at 9:00, we headed inside for a card game and off to bed at about 11:00. Thank goodness, she only had the one birthday, since we were exhausted after all that activity!!!
The next day they were off and we had time to catch our breath! That evening we took our Florida friends up to what our friends call "Copper Canyon". This is the place that our group went to for our hot dog dinner and sunset about a month ago! The following day we went back with yet another couple...can't get enough of the views!!!
Yesterday, we took Bonnie with us and decided to go and try our luck finding geodes! We were originally going to go mushroom hunting, but we need more rain, they say a couple more weeks will do the trick! They have goedes up in the mountains, and after a 2 mile or slightly more hike, you can begin to find them. A geode looks like a round or oval rock whick is hollow and has a mineral or gem stone crystals in them. Here they have opals! As we approached the area, it began to rain, and within minutes, it began with lightnening, so we turned around and headed back down to the Jeep! It's amazing how fast you can go when there is lightening threatening!!! Dave did however find a neat rock with an opal in it and we found a couple other interesting rocks on our way back. Those along with the fun Jeep ride, and great scenery made it another fun day, and a place where we hope to return to!
We went to the rodeo with our coworkampers, went prospecting, drove to Pagosa Springs, did more off roading, had a visit from my 2 of my cousins (celebrated a 13th birthday) went geode hunting, and had more just plain fun!!!!
The rodeo was a Friday night in Monte Vista, a town 45 minutes from here, right before Alamossa. Again our group of workampers all decided to go together and all 12 of us henjoyed our great seats and the activities.
Pagosa Springs is another neat little town, and they boast hot springs there. If you want they even have tubes for you to rent and float down their lazy river, which is heated by springs. We hope to go and try it one day this coming week!
My cousin arrived on July 30th with her daughter, they live northwest of Denver (about 5 hours away). Shortly after their arrival off we all went in the Jeep to Creede to show them the small town, mines and to get a permit for a walking stick! Thursday, the next day, was her daughter's birthday. We had arranged to go horseback riding, first thing in the morning, the wrangler came over and informed us that he had 10 people going at 9:00 and thought we would get a better ride if we waited until 12:00. So, we hoped in the Jeep and went up the local forrestry road and she selected 2 Aspen walking sticks. Dave cut them down and we returned to the MH. She then had about an hour to peel off the bark and see what she got! Within the hour she found she had 2 pretty cool looking walking sticks! 12:00 and we were off for our horseback ride and upon our return, we were told we could go for a raft ride, if we wanted. So, off 3 of us went, Dave stayed back with our dog and their new puppy. 2 hours later, we were 7 miles down the river (the raft ride is shorter now that the river is lower and running much slower! As we have mentioned before, this river is really a float trip, they told us that it isn't even rated as a white water river, and is actually classified as "blue water". Back at the Motorhome, we got changed and headed over to the restaurant for dinner and coconut cream pie! After that, we got back to the motorhome and a campfire and at 9:00, we headed inside for a card game and off to bed at about 11:00. Thank goodness, she only had the one birthday, since we were exhausted after all that activity!!!
The next day they were off and we had time to catch our breath! That evening we took our Florida friends up to what our friends call "Copper Canyon". This is the place that our group went to for our hot dog dinner and sunset about a month ago! The following day we went back with yet another couple...can't get enough of the views!!!
Yesterday, we took Bonnie with us and decided to go and try our luck finding geodes! We were originally going to go mushroom hunting, but we need more rain, they say a couple more weeks will do the trick! They have goedes up in the mountains, and after a 2 mile or slightly more hike, you can begin to find them. A geode looks like a round or oval rock whick is hollow and has a mineral or gem stone crystals in them. Here they have opals! As we approached the area, it began to rain, and within minutes, it began with lightnening, so we turned around and headed back down to the Jeep! It's amazing how fast you can go when there is lightening threatening!!! Dave did however find a neat rock with an opal in it and we found a couple other interesting rocks on our way back. Those along with the fun Jeep ride, and great scenery made it another fun day, and a place where we hope to return to!
Thursday we decided to go to Silverton via the Alpine Loop, a definate 4 wheel drive route. It was a long trip, which took over 3 hours once we arrived at the starting point! It was another fantastic day with one minor problem, we blew a front tire. Dave changed it, and on our way home this time via Durango, we got a new spare tire! Silverton is another neat Western town, and we are going to try to take the Durango Silverton train ride and spend the night in Silverton.
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