Mormon Country...where the teenagers know that the waist band of their pants belongs on the waist not under their butt cheeks.

If you were a follower of our trip from last year you know we love Utah. Not just for the reason above but for the beauty of this area as well.  We are in Price, Utah.  It is in central Utah where the red clay goes away and the mountains are beige.  Yesterday was our 9 Mile Canyon Drive which is the only reason we drove all the way up here.  It was our last "petroglyph/ ancient Indian" experience and well worth the drive. We spent over 8 hours hiking and driving through the canyon which is best described as an "ancient museum of petroglyph rock art"...it is just all around you.  From here we will get out of "Indian Country" and you won't have to endure any more petroglyph/pit house/cliff dwelling pictures! We found a gholst town and other cool stuff as well.

Our campsite is pleasant enough and the owners are helpful.  Laundry is once again on the agenda as we won't have an opportunity for a while.  We head south back into red clay country to Goblin Valley State Park.  While this park is always filled with locals it is often skipped by tourists in favor of Capitol Reef National Park which is just a few miles away. We'll have some down time there while we are dry camping for 5 days.   There are a lot of hiking trails and it is the perfect base camp to traverse the San Raphael Swell.  Beautiful scenery and lots of "off road" exploring await! The weather has been warm and sunny and perfect and it looks to get HOT in Goblin Valley....mid 90's.  Should be good as that's the stuff we desert rats like!

Nancy Jo...you would have still been in the canyon. You need to go with your camera in hand and plan to spend 8 to 10 hours taking photos. !

Nan (the Mom).......I tried to take some photos of some Llamas for you in the canyon...don't know what happened to them! I thought they'd make some nice hats!

A quick shout of thanks to Lora and Mary for the Mother's Day calls. and Nancy Jo for the text. I hope yours was wonderful as well.  Bill, my dear son, I hope you're feeling better. For those that don't know, he had an accident and landed in the hospital.  He rides his bicycle in many charitable events and he went head over bars over the weekend. A broken helmet, concussion, scrapes and bruises and an ambulance ride to the ER in the "hood" of Long Beach.  Karen's taking good care of him I know. Kinda blew her Mother's Day! Feel Better, sweetie!

We are off to tour downtown Price........

And the answer is……

Freezing!  Bill lazer temped it and it was 39 degrees. I would have sworn it was colder than that as I was sitting on it!  I suppose I probably warmed it up a degree or two while I sat there realizing I could see my breath while I was spitting out words like a Marine. 

Other than the cold, Mesa Verde National Park was stunning.  It was one more thing that had been on my bucket list that I can check off.  Hundreds and hundreds of discovered and undiscovered cliff dwellings that it’s hard to really grasp the enormity of the area and the antiquities that it holds.  I did climb ladders to see the Cliff Palace but drew the line at the 34 footer to see the Balcony House.  Bill did that one alone.

 Cliff Palace

 Cliff Palace

 Spruce Tree

Lots of deer and lots of trees and not many campers  in the campground made for a beautiful peaceful setting. But it was cold.  It snowed on us on the way and snowed on us as we were setting up camp.  But after that it just rained and rained and then it rained some more.  

34 ft ladder Climbing was not for me. 

From here we are off to Price, Utah.  The weather there is a balmy 75 degrees.  The reason for a trip all of the way up to Price? We will be driving the Nine Mile Canyon which is really 75 miles long round trip.  It is like a newspaper from the past filled with petroglyphs and pictographs.  Rufus can come along on this so we can take our time. 

Here's some info on the canyon http://www.castlecountry.com/Nine-Mile-Canyon

Brain Teaser

If it's 33 degrees outside and 35 degrees inside the motorhome how cold is the toilet seat?
Answer to come tomorrow as we move on to a warmer climate....

Durango, Colorado

The only reason we came to Durango was to ride the train to Silverton.  This train, in fact:

Bill took this shot by leaning out the window from our seat!

Fortunately, no one spit.

It was well worth the trip.  The scenery was spectacular as the train works its way from Durango to Silverton where it is 3000 ft. higher elevation.  It follows the Animas River which was raging today.  . The train cars and the engine are the same ones that made this same trip back in the late 1800's. My son, Bill and his wife Karen, tried to make this same trip several years ago but the train broke down. Well, Bill and Karen, you need to try it again. It was really really beautiful.  At the end of the 3 1/2 hour journey up to Silverton we had lunch and walked around this very old mining town. We love old buildings so we were in heaven.  It was very cold and it snowed on us for a bit.

A building from the old" red light" district

 ME....freezing.  My toothless friend was frozen like a wooden statue

Tomorrow we are off to Mesa Verde National Park. We hope.  It will snow tonight and Bill has never driven the motorhome in the snow much less up and down from 6300 feet up to 9000 feet and back down again. Should we actually MAKE it....we will be dry camping (no heat!)for 3 days!  The snow is supposed to continue for 3 or 4 days. We may find ourselves begging for a hook-up site when we get to the park! It will also make our tours more challenging as we have to climb ladders to the cliff dwellings. I say "if we actually make it" because our motorhome takes these hills at an average speed of 34mph uphill to 134mph on the downhill.  These gas motorhomes just don't have the power to climb nor the "jake brake" to slow them down. We have to adjust our GPS for when it says it will take 3 hours to get somewhere, if it's uphill, we add an hour. If it's downhill, well, we pray a lot.  Coming up the hill out of Fountain Hills, AZ through Phoenix was very tough. We never did over 34mph. It was the same coming from Cortez to Durango....until the downhill.  Then I closed my eyes and hung on while the brakes smoked away.  Can't flippin' wait to do it in the snow.

The park we have been in since we got to Durango has been nice.  The train ride is an all day affair so tour park offers a dog walking service.  For $10 Rufus got walked twice, played in the dog park and got a cookie.  Now, however, he expects a cookie after his walk. Funny how they can learn so.me things SO fast and other things (like "stay")  make you think he needs a "special ed" class
The setting here is beautiful and we loved hearing the train go by in the morning.

Since our sole purpose for coming here was the trip to Silverton we didn't spend much time in the city of Durango.  But it looked cute and had a lot of great old buildings for us to slobber on.

Well, that's is from Durango. Cross your fingers and toes that there  isn't too much snow fall tonight and that we make it our next destination safely and with ease.  We can use all the help we can get.

Older than dirt, smoking the dirt, loving the dirt.......

Older than dirt:  Canyon of the Ancients.  We went to Lowry Pueblo which is on the National Heritage Registry.  Ruins that have been given this designation, like the ones given World Heritage status that we saw in Nicaragua, get special funding and have been preserved by covering significant parts of the ruins with a "roof".  Lowry Pueblo was a huge city and it was really fun to be able to climb among these well preserved ruins.

 These people were generally only 4 ft tall

The Great Kiva used for different Clan gatherings, politics and dancing.  The forms in the center represent Winter and Summer People.

From there we decided on a change of pace from viewing ruins.  So, off we were to....

Smoking the dirt:  Well, smoking what was growing in the dirt.  We went to Stoner, Co.  All you need to know about Stoner you can read here. Population? TWO.

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/12/marijuana_stoner_colorado_mayor_amendment_64.php

No photos of Stoner as the No Trespassing signs were abundant and we saw the Mayor eyeing us from his lean to.  It is on the map. It IS a real town.

Loving the Dirt:  We both fell in love with Dolores, CO. It reminded me of Damaroscotta, Maine only more rustic and I LOVE Damaroscotta!  Great old buildings and charm.  We met the soon to be new owners of an RV park just outside of town.  It sits on the lovely Dolores River (yes, you can raft it) and we spent some time there with him.  They were closed but answered all of our questions.  We would love to figure out a way to get out of Sun City every summer for 3 months and Dolores rang that bell for us.  Here's the link to the RV park 

www.doloresriverrvparkandcabins.com

Now this building is the town newspaper building

 This is what Bill and I can afford in Dolores. Maybe we should stick to the RV Park!

Population of Dolores, Co? 942

So that was our great day.  Tomorrow we are off to Durango. This will be a laundry stop (ugh) and a train ride to Silverton on the Silverton Durango Train.  It is supposed to rain on us. Oh well, not a doggone thing we can do to control the weather. I sure am glad we reserved an INDOOR train car!