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.

Camping at Hovenweep

In 2009, only 37,848 people visited Hovenweep National Monument,
making it the 10th least visited Monument in the National Park
system. If that number increases by two for 2010, Lynn and I
can be thanked because we decided to stop here to camp for the
night on our way home. It's a great little park that has a lot of
different Anasazi (Ancient Puebloan) structures, stradeling the
Utah/Colorado border.


Even though we pulled into the small campground at around
5:30, we found a pretty nice little spot, overlooking a nearby
canyon, and Ute Mountain, far to the east. Unlike the past two
nights at Chaco, there was no wind, and the temperatures were
relatively warm.


Apparently, it takes very little to make us happy and we
discovered that we were going to be the first to use the
fire pit that had recently been installed at our site. It
performed like a champ!


Because the weather was so nice, there weren't any clouds, and
we were able to get a spectacular showing of stars. Probably the
best display we've seen since we last wintered on the Ice a few
years ago. The moon was just a sliver in the sky, certainly helping
our view.

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.