SPRING, 2014

Since we arrived back home the end of April, we've been trying to mix in "fun stuff" with the "work stuff" of getting the house & property back in livable shape for the summer. The deer only killed one nice 15-foot aspen . . . stupid rutting males . . . and the house was in great shape with no snow damage, and we quickly got the spring water working in the house, yard, and the irrigation ditches working on the hay field. We were fortunate enough to get back early enough to do a little Spring x-country skiing up high on the passes, and by mid-May we took a break to give the Rubicon a little workout for a few days over around Moab, Utah, and Canyonlands Nat'l Park. It'll be too hot to go west of here into Utah by June, so May is perfect for desert camping; it's too early now to go jeeping up into our own San Juan Mountains, so it all works out.
I'm just throwing up some miscellaneous pics from the last few weeks; we enjoy reliving them later, while sequestered on Summer Breeze in some quiet anchorage. Spring in Durango is fading quickly into Summer; can't wait to head up to those 13,000-14,000 foot altitudes as soon as the snow melts. Having decided that 15 years doing my seasonal "fun retirement job" for the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge RailRoad was quite enough, we've now decided to take our quest for fun to a whole new "year round" status. If you thought we were worthless wanderers before, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Enjoy!

This is a pretty impressive move for someone who has "height issues".

Yep, this is the road . . . maybe.

Two more steps to the left ???

La Sal Mountains just to the east of Moab, Utah, from slickrock territory in Canyonlands Nat'l.

HATCH'S ROCK - Mormon Fundamentalist village

Look closely for the rock climber.

"LocoWeed"

After jeeping for a couple of hours over the Abajo Mountains, in order to get from the Canyonlands Nat'l to Monticello, Utah, we were almost to town when we ran into this downed tree across the road. We had to backtrack for over an hour and ended up in Blanding, Utah . . . almost out of gas. Whew!

On June 7 we had a blast attending the "Animas River Festival" in downtown Durango at Santa Rita Park, where we got to watch the raft parade coming through Smelter Rapid. What a hoot!

This is a Public Service Announcement for old hikers like us . . . "the desert canyons don't easily suffer fools". On June 3 we went for what was supposed to be a little 6-mile hike on a loop up into Sand Canyon in the Canyon of the Ancients Historical Area. It was a beautiful cloudy morning when we took off, but the sun soon came out and the temp started to rise. We carried water for a 6-mile hike; however, we missed a fork at one point and ended up, not lost, but inadvertently adding another 4 miles to our hike. By the last mile, we were right on the edge of dangerous dehydration and were really fortunate to make it back to the Jeep. Lesson learned !