Exploring Hovenweep

We had a great night of sleep and we are actually getting really
good at breaking down camp. Who knows...by the end of the summer
we might actually be able to wrap it all up in a half hour! We made
our way over to the Visitor's Center where the main trail surrounding
the ruins at Hovenweep begins. Hovenweep was a small community
of farmers and hunters located around a small canyon. From the
trail, one can see most of the dwellings and they are all pretty
spectacular. Add to the fact that hardly anyone was here besides
us, made it even better.


The ruins here are in average condition, but to me, that helps give
one a feeling of how they looked when they were first discovered.


We left the Square Tower group near the Visitor's Center and drove
toward the Holly/Hackberry Group. Even fewer people visit this
remote area and it is located a short drive down a dirt road to the
northeast. We hiked in over some really interesting slick rock
to the Holly Group and there it was with a commanding view of the
canyon.


Indian Paintbrush is one of my favorite flowers and they were here in
abundance as well as many other varieties.






We saw all kinds of lizards along the trail, but this yellow-headed
collared lizard did a wonderful job of posing for us.

Way Too Windy

We spent a very windy night at Great Sand Dunes, and
even though we planned on staying a second night, we
decided to break camp and look elsewhere to camp for
our second night. We read the weather forecast at the
Visitor's Center and there were to be wind gusts of up
to 60 mph this evening. Even though our tent did well
last night, we didn't have that great of a time because we
couldn't sit outside and enjoy our campsite. We decided
to head west in hopes that the weather would be better.
Along they way, we saw a large elk herd that reminded
us of when we lived in Estes Park upwards of 200 elk
would gather in our yard at the same time.


This part of Colorado has quite a few farms where bison
are raised. It was interesting watching them and it's
quite relieving to know that they aren't as endangered
as they were even a generation ago.


As we drove west, through southern Colorado, we traveled a
few roads through country we hadn't visited before. We went
through Pagosa Springs and when we got to Durango, we
stopped at the Public Lands Office to check the weather.
We had thought about stopping for the night near Dolores
and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, but found
that it was going to be even windier there than at Great
Sand Dunes. We even thought about staying at Hovenweep
National Monument, which is even farther west. It was very
windy there as well. It seemed at times that the whole state
of Utah was blowing east into Colorado. The skies had such
a hazy, dusty look. We decided to cut our losses and head
home for the night. We headed north and visited the small
resort/ski town of Telluride. We decided we would visit
later in the summer since it looked like a pretty neat place.
Later, we drove the the small town of Ridgway where we
saw this old firehouse and fire truck. They also have an
interesting railroad museum there that we might check out
at a later date. Overall, we spent a long day in the car, but
it was fun to see so many places we hadn't seen before.

Great Sand Dunes

Lynn and I drove to Southern Colorado and visited Great Sand Dunes
National Park and Preserve. As a camping trip, we took along our
tent and all of our camping gear. We'd visited Great Sand Dunes
about 10 years ago, but it was only a National Monument at the
time. It has since been elevated to National Park Status. These
dunes are the tallest in North America and is a place you pretty
much have to be going to as it is kind of in the middle of nowhere
and not on a busy highway.


It's still pretty early in the season and there is a lot of snow on
the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo mountains that border the park.


There are only a few dozen campsites open at this time of year since
it is still the shoulder season for the park, but many of the sites have
great views.


Our campsite has a nice view of the dunes through the trees.


Each site is really spacious, has a picnic table, fire pit and tent pad.
What really impressed me though was each site has a spacious
"Bear Box". This is necessary in this part of the country because if
one leaves food out, bears will find it, and least importantly eat your
food, but most importantly is very harmful to bears and wildlife in
general. Once they get a taste of human food, they are harmed
forever, because they will always want human food instead of
natural food that is good for them.


Despite windy conditions, our little tent was a trooper and held strong.


Along the road in the park, we saw lots of mule deer and even saw
a couple about 20 yards from our campsite.


This time of year, the snow melt from the Sangre de Cristoss flows
into Medano Creek, which runs in front of the dunes. Medano is
unique because it has a tidal type of flow and people that walk in
the creek can feel it moving back and forth. It's hard to explain
unless you've been here, but it is pretty amazing.


Because it was so windy, there weren't a lot of folks visiting the
park, but in a way that was nice because it definitely wasn't
crowded.


There is a special starkness and beauty to the park. The dunes
are definitely a unique feature that more should make an effort to visit.

Bees!

While we were driving through Palisade today, we stopped and
snapped a photo of one of the most important cogs of the Grand
Valley fruit industry...Bees! Most orchard farmers don't own their
own bees, but have them brought in by services each year to have
their fruit trees pollinated. Without pollination, there would be
no fruit. The bees are so important to the local economy that the
Town of Palisade recently held their International Honey Bee
Festival to honor them!

Poor Skunk

This happened in Grand Junction recently:

Adélies

After work today, I ran into my friend Melanie,
and she told me that she had just been to Hut Point
and had seen quite a few Adélie Penguins. Now I
had seen a couple hundred Adélies in 2007, but it
had been awhile since I had seen penguins of any
kind, so I figured it was definitely worth my
time. It was fun to see them running around the
ice and interesting to see how they moved when
a helicopter flew over. They moved almost like
a herd of wildebeests like you see on nature shows
but also like a rather large swarm of flying
starlings. Hard to describe, but it was almost
as if they moved as one. Anyway, for a few minutes
I had the entire point to myself and I could hear
them chattering back and forth to themselves.
They were communing with each other, while I was
communing with nature.

Weddell Seals

While I was on the trip to the Scott Base
Pressure Ridges, we came across this mother
and pup Weddell Seals. Both were really
animated, which is out of the ordinary
since most seals spend a majority of their
time lounging on the ice, soaking up the
sun.

Grand Mesa National Forest

We see Grand Mesa every day from Grand Junction but
until now had never taken a drive through this beautiful
part of Colorado.


Water seemed to be one of the themes of the day as we
saw streams and lakes everywhere.


Wildlife was abundant and had very little fear of humans.


Lots of people were out on the many lakes, enjoying
some early autumn fishing.


There were lots of trails that we want to check out and
hike next summer.


Deep thoughts...with Tom Hamann...LOL


There were hillsides at every turn that were on fire with
color.


The views were awesome!


At Land's End one can see all the way to Utah from almost
11,000 feet altitude. That's Grand Junction in the center
of the photo.


These little guys have obviously played the "pose for the
tourist" game before.


Each direction had fantastic views. This is overlooking
the Gunnison River valley and Uncompahgre Plateau to
the southwest.


Somewhere in the middle of this photo is our house!


Even more birds were practically begging to have their
photo taken.


Gold and Green apparently aren't the only fall colors in
Colorado.


Some of the Aspen were holding onto summer and were
stubbornly staying green.


Although it was a bit hazy and warm in the valley (84 degrees),
the air was clear and a crisp 51 degrees on top of the Mesa.
That's what 6000 feet of altitude will do for you!


One of the few buildings at Land's End is the Observatory,
built by the CCC during the Depression by World War I Vets.

The Mindo Cloud Forest

According to Wikipedia: A cloud forest, also called a fog forest, is a
generally tropical or subtropical evergreen montane moist forest
characterized by a high incidence of low-level cloud cover, usually
at the canopy level.

We rode a couple hours north of Quito to visit the Mindo Cloud Forest
and were definitely not disappointed. It's a large jungle area that
comprised entirely of forest. The whole day the clouds weren't much
higher than the tree tops.


The entire forest was very lush and dense.


We saw some very exotic looking plants.


All kinds of hummingbirds. Many of which I've never seen before.


This one was nice enough to sit still for the camera.


All kinds of butterflies as well.


There were dozens of these beauties that looked very plain and
brown on one side but a really pretty blue on the other.


These little guys were everywhere.


I was really surprised to see Monarchs as well


The locals kept an eye on us as we explored including this little
boy playing at a local school.


The town of Mindo is pretty small...basically one main street.


We ate at this really good restaurant called Cakaffesu that
served possibly the best food we've had in Ecuador. It's owned
by an American woman and her Ecuadoran husband. She was
quite pleasant and chatted with us for a while.