September 2009

I don’t know if all of you are familiar with the stupid Christmas song called “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” but how about this one “Grandma Almost Got Bit by a Rattlesnake”!!  yes that is right – yours truly wasn’t watching the trail quite as closely as I should have been and there it was!!

I have never heard a rattlesnake for real – just what we all hear in the movies and tv – but one evening in Mesa Verde we had an early evening meal and decided to walk the nature trail that is by the campground.  It weaves in and out of the valley and up to the cliff side.  There are numbers going up to 32 in the booklet that tells you all about the plants and trees and what is edible and what isn’t.  The names of the trees and plants.   The trails name is Knife Edge (I will post more photos of the trail after we get home and Mike has had time to go through all the photos).  Well we were walking, Mike is taking photos and I am reading from the book by each number telling him what he is seeing and taking photos of   For the most part the trail was fairly wide and easy to follow.  But at number 30 the trail is starting to get a little close, the grasses are a little longer and the trail is narrow.  All of a sudden I heard it!  I knew instantly what it was even though I had never heard it before – there is something about that rattle that you immediately know - RATTLESNAKE — I froze, looked around and there about 12 inches from my feet on the side of the trail mixed in with the grass and brush was a rattlesnake coiled up and rattling.  I started to slowly back up one step at a time and about the same time Mike is saying “What” – like what are you walking backwards for – he sees it and hears it too.   We both continue to back up and it stays where it is.  At a safe distance–of course the camera is ready Mike is taking photos!  Here are the photo’s.

Here is my rattlesnake - if you look closely in the middle you can see the underside of the rattles - we can't see it's head in the photo but I think it is behind one of the green leaves where the body looks just a little flatter. You can see why I didn't see it with all that brush around it - although I must admit I hadn't been looking down at the trail at that instance.

Here it is as we are kicking gravel at it off of the path to make it leave the area. It sure stretches out a ways. I have no idea how long it was as it blended in to the area so much. In this photo you can see the head and how long the body is stretching but if you look at the end of it - it is still coiled in that section.

I must admit my heart was beating fast as we were waiting for it to clear out of the way.  This happened between #30 & 31 and it only went to #32 and we would be finished.  We were brave and finished the trail to the end — with me very closely watching my feet and the trail — all the way back too!  I’m glad to say I lived to tell the tale

(actually my heart was beating kind of fast for almost an hour and I couldn’t stop talking about how close that was and why wasn’t I watching the trail better when I know you are supposed to do that as I am an experienced hiker — I learned my lesson and will watch closer from now on!)

(We are now on the way home and should be home on Friday.  Tonight we are at a KOA campground with internet!! I have missed it.  We are in New Mexico, tomorrow will be someplace in Oklahoma and then home)

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Our last day in the Rocky Mountain National Park area we took a hike called Fern Falls.  It was beautiful and went from the aspen trees up to a very pretty water fall.  It was a steep trail though and I was hurting by time we got back!  My hips just aren’t what they used to be but the trail is always worth it and I know a day or two of rest and they will be back to normal   Here are the photos.

Towards the beginning of the trail a small snake dashed in front of me and as I stepped back to get out of the way as it wiggled into the brush along side of the trail I happened to see this hornets nest. Kind of cool isn't it?

Huge rocks in the front part of the trail. We do not know this person, she was just standing there - it gives you a very good perspective though of how large the boulders are though doesn't it.

a pretty bridge on the trail

a view of the mountains

sharing the trail with horses - horses have the right of way as they take up more room people have to scatter to the sides of the trail - no really the people riding the horses will hold the horses in and wait politely for the people to step out of the way making sure everyone is a safe distance from their horses before they let them through and thank you for stepping aside. That is my hat in the corner.

a photo of the river before we come to the falls

another view of the river

the lower part of the falls. We know we are getting to the top of the falls now.

Fern Falls. It was worth the climb. Now time to find a rock to sit on and rest and eat some lunch before heading back in a little bit. First time to sit and relax though and enjoy the sound of the water fall and enjoy looking at it.

a view from the side of it.

I hope you all have enjoyed the photos.  I should be back on line in a day or two.  This post was done on Saturday before we left for Mesa Verde and scheduled to be on here on Tuesday.

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I never did finish putting up all the photo’s of Animas Fork the old mining town that we saw earlier in the week.  I wrote this post several days ago knowing that we would not have internet service while we are at Mesa Verde and scheduled it to be posted today.

I'm not sure what this building was but it was a long one for sure and falling apart now!

some of the road going in to the town and a culvert of water going under the road from the river

Mike taking a break from his photographic duties - these pictures today are ones I took with the small camera as he doesn't have all of his edited

the river and dirt road

one more building - I do think that because of a combination of so many of these buildings having metal roofs and the extreme cold temperatures up in this area is why so many of these buildings are still standing. If this was Arkansas with the heat and humidity that we have they would have rotted by now.

Mike again by one of the buildings

That’s it from the mining town.  I will have photo’s to post from Mesa Verde on the way home if we have internet which we most likely well as when we are driving home we mainly stop at KOA’s along the interstate as they are easy to find and can get back on the road quickly the next day.

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(we leave our campground with internet access on Saturday morning so I have scheduled several blog post to be posted while I won’t be on the computer.  I hope to be back – live – on Wednesday or Thursday)

Estes Park is an interesting little tourist town.  Yes it does have the trappings that come with it – more gift shops that you can imagine, lots of people in the summer (maybe the winter too?), but yet it is a interesting little town.  Here are some photos of things we saw.

candy store - salt water taffy being pulled by machine

a dog that looked just like our daughter and son-in-law's dog - Patty

people in the streets

a sculpture in the middle of an intersection of a big horn sheep

another sculpture of a different shape

an old water wheel

an old west water fountain

and these are just a few of the things you see around the town of Estes Park on a busy weekend in early September.

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The other day we drove over to see the Black Canyon of the Gunnison on the south side.  Today we are going back to see the north end – you have to drive further and go in a completely different side to do this and then you see the canyon from a different view.

The following are photos taken from the south side.

the visitors center - this building is pretty new, this place use to be a national momument now it is a National Park (about 8 -10 years ago the change was made).

a pretty rock wall by the parking area. I like how the rocks were placed, opposite of what you normally see.

one view looking down into the canyon - isn't that tall skinny spirial rock neat

another view of the canyon

we took the road that drives through the park and from this point we could see the visitors center across the way

we drove to the bottom of the canyon - this is about half way down. You drive down 8 miles on a road that is a 16% grade (very steep) it goes all the way down to the river that you can see when you are above. This photo is about half way down.

a view of the river

another view of the river

a view of the top of the canyon looking up - and yes the sky was once again getting cloudy! every afternoon!

and another view.

Every afternoon it seems like we get rain showers.  Yesterday though it was just plain rain.  We had been out for awhile looking shops and things in Ouray and stopped and had coffee and cake in the middle of the morning at a neat little bakery in town.  Then went into the mountain for a drive and have lunch.  We had brought our little fold up table and canvas chairs with us and had lunch by the river.  Sounds nice huh – except the temperature had dropped and it was in the mid 50′s and you could tell it was going to start to rain – where the heck had the sun went!  What was going to be a leisurely lunch turned out to be a hurried lunch and hop back into the car to warm up!   Then it did start to rain and continued until about 8 in the evening.  We ended up spending most of the late afternoon and evening back at the campground as we just didn’t feel like wandering around in the rain.

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We have taken so many photos of animals and flowers that I can’t fit them all in one post so I thought I would add another post today of photos.

another chipmunk posing

one of the elk that was behind our camper one morning in Rocky Mtn. National park last week that I told you about previously

and look at this big guy laying down in back of the camper - about 100 feet from the camper estimated (from last week also - Mike uses the zoom lens, he does not get close ).

the back of our camper at that park so you can see the area it was in, the elk were down there in back of it in the rocks and trees bedded down for part of the day, there were at least 9 of them that we could see

giant flower pots in the town of Estes Park by the National park. Why can I not get flowers to grow this pretty! the town has flower pots and baskets all over the place

pretty daisies in the town

Bighorn sheep - we caught sight of 3 of these magnificent animals on the mountain cliff side last week. These animals that we saw were not in the park but about 15 east of the town.

Pearly Everlasting

purple harebells and a yellow "daisy"

Indian Paintbrush

That’s it for now.  I am going to try to get some photo’s from Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park on here later this evening if I can get the photos uploaded, this internet is very slow here.  Today we are off to Ouray and a box canyon – 40% chance of rain and 64 degrees for that area it says – it is higher in elevation that the campground here and even though we are only about 4 miles from the town it is much cooler there – today at the campground it is supposed to be about 5 degrees warmer.

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On Tuesday this week we drove from our campsite to the old mining town of Silverton about 30 miles south of here.  It is a very quaint town, year round population is maybe 500 – summer is another story – maybe double that?  The towns elevation is close to 10,000 feet.   There are a lot of artist in this town and it has some very nice shops.   I had the opportunity to watch a weaver doing his weaving and talk to him about how he does it.  He was very talented and I’m envious of the fabric he was weaving.

The Durango-Silverton narrow gauge railroad train goes from Durango to Silverton helping the town of Silverton maintain an economy from all the tourist that have a 3 hour wait before boarding the train to go back down the mountain to Durango.  We have taken the train ride several times and decided not to this time.

All around the town of Silverton and Ouray are jeep and 4 wheel drive trails.  Some are very rough! and that is putting it mildly in my opinion I am not a fan of these trails but that is me, a lot of people love them.

Tuesday we drove out on one of these 4 wheel drive trails about 10 miles before it gets really rough and visited the old mining town of Animas Fork.  It was booming mainly in the late 1800′s and the early 1900′s.  It was kind of cool to see the old buildings and read the plaques outside of them.  Some of them are still in good enough condition that you can walk around the inside of them a little bit.

the parking area at the mining town. The jeep trail goes off in the distance of it.

some of the old houses - all of the old artifacts are gone having been taken years ago, nothing here but the shells of the buildings.

this house has the distinction of being the only house in this "town" that had in door plumbing!

this is a side view of the house in the previous picture. The middle room is an enclosed hallway with windows that leads to the outhouse making this house the only house in town with indoor plumbing!! Lucky family not having to trudge though the snow to go potty and they do have snow up here for about 8 months out of the year.

more of the old buildings

I managed to get a few more blocks done on So Charming and now have 20 blocks, here is a photo of them.

So Charming - 20 blocks, no design wall space here in the motorhome so I have to lay them out on the sheet of the bed to get a photo but I can tell I will not have luck laying many more out at a time with this space!

Thank you to everyone leaving comments and e mail about the photos.  We love taking photos and sharing them.  We do not watch much tv while we are traveling, in fact we have had the tv on only one time to check the news and found out the tv wasn’t working!!  It is practically new.  We will check it out again when we get home and see if it will work, not a clue why it wouldn’t.  The dvd player will work but we haven’t even bother to watch one of the 20 or so movies that we brought along with us.  Normally we just listen to music in the evening in the summer (to many reruns on tv) and read, sew (me), and work on blogs!  What can I say we are computer addicted and we have been irked at times as to how slow the internet is here for uploading photo’s.  At times we have not been able to get any to load at all.

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