Flamingo on a Stick

Garden of the Gods What a wonderful place this is. So much to do that I am sure we will have to return and with my good friend Mary living here it will be a must. Mary and I lived together for 3 years when we were just out of college in Iowa City. Two of those years were with our friend Trudy. If you want a good chuckle you’ll have to picture the three of us; we all are about the same height from 4’11” to 5’1”. We took a lot of teasing but boy did we have fun. We ran together, went on ski trips, hiking trips to Colorado, camping trips and just plain had too much fun. I was even with Mary when she met her now husband Kevin. We were all at the 1980 Final Four Basketball Tournament in Indianapolis. The Iowa Hawks made the cut that year and Mary talked me into camping out all night for tickets. She was working nights as an RN at U of I Hospitals and I was working days as a hygienist. What a crazy time. It is so much fun to have some time with her again.  Siamese Twins ...

View from our site at Lathrop State Park Snow at the top of Wolf Creek Pass Saturday we left Durango and headed East. Our destination was Lathrop State Park near Walsenburg CO.  On this route there is one big obstacle, Wolf Creek Pass, its summit is 10,857 ft with significant 7-8% grades. This is the highest pass we have yet to tow on. The truck now has a high performance transmission and an exhaust brake all installed to help us with just such places. So it was time to see how the truck would do. It definitely tested the truck but using 2nd gear and on the steeper parts just slowing down made everything run smoothly. One cool thing that came with the Banks system is a monitor that monitors just about everything on the engine. One of the things John watches is the exhaust gas temperatures(EGT). When it get too hot it beeps at you and lets you know to let up on the throttle. It did beep at us a couple times and just made us aware it was time to slow down. The truck has p...

A beautiful last night at Navajo Lake. Golden hour lighting! I’ve been really lazy about writing the blog this week. Sorry, but been out having fun. Thanks Bill and Char for a great week! We left Navajo Lake and our friends on Tuesday. On the Sunday before we left, we all took a ride around southern Colorado. Checking out Bayfield and Durango. It was a beautiful drive and in the process we decided to make our next move to Durango and a park called Alpen Rose. It is more expensive than we usually do but it is a nice park and near the things we wanted to check out. Starter Hotel, a real gem. We have really enjoyed Durango, it has a wonderful downtown area. On Sunday we had drinks at the Strater Hotel with Bill and Char and fell in love with this town. I have been in Durango previously when I was young and my family came to Purgatory to ski. Purgatory is now Durango Resort. This also is the home to the Durango to Silverton narrow gage railroad. We went back and fo...

View from our site at Navajo Lake We left Cottonwood Arizona on Monday morning and drove to Gallup, NM. We knew we would need to break up our drive to Navajo Lake so decided to do a Walmart stop. We don’t do those very often but sometimes it just makes sense. We went in and did some grocery shopping, I got my hair cut and then there was an Applebee’s close enough to walk to. A noisy night but all in all an ok stop. Our sites sits at the top of the hill overlooking the lake. Tuesday morning we took off and arrived at Navajo Lake State Park to spend a week camping with friends we met last year in Tucson. The site we reserved was a pull over that is just barely big enough. Char was already there, and with her and I helping we were able to get the rig where we needed it. The spot is tight but the view makes it worth it. This park does not have the big open spaces we have experienced at the other NM state parks but it is a beautiful lake. There are lots of houseboats on thi...

Fay Canyon Been pretty lazy the last couple of days. I think all of our running around caught up with us and we just needed a little down time so I am finally sitting down to let you know what we’ve been up too. View from mesa at top of Doe Mountain John liked the bark on this tree Thursday we headed to Sedona to do a little hiking and check out the town. It definitely is a beautiful area. The town is nestled in the lovely red rocks. We stopped at the visitor center to get the scoop on some hiking and get a map. The guy we talked to recommended Doe Mountain and gave us maps and directions. I had some suggestions from friends too but this one sounded like one we’d enjoy. We followed his directions to where we thought the trail head was but didn’t find it we went a little further and found a parking lot but the trailhead was for Fay Canyon. This hike looked pretty easy so we were there why not take it. It was a very nice hike and at the end of the rail we met a coupl...

Last night before my last post, I switched over to the new blogger format. Today I went in to change a couple settings that Rick talked about on the comments, (went to embedded comments), when I checked the settings it turns out when I made the switch it turned the word verification back on. Got it turned off again, I think. Sorry if it popped up for anyone, it is such an annoying feature. Happy Trails.........

Snow! Can you see John and I in the reflection? Sunday we did our last hike at the Grand Canyon. We picked up the Rim Trail where we left off at Bright Angel lodge and headed on foot this time for Hermit’s rest. It was a much cooler day and pretty breezy but we just dressed warmer and headed out. It turned out to be a beautiful hike, I think this part of the rim trail has some of the best views. We made it to Monument View and hopped on a shuttle back to the trailer. Not too long after we were back and relaxing, we looked out the window to find snow flakes falling. The snow got a lot harder and the wind picked up and for about an hour it looked like winter outside. The snow stopped as quickly as it started leaving about enough behind to cover all the grassy areas but the roads stayed clear. We have seen a few flurries over the winter but this was the most snow we have seen in two years.  View from our site Monday it was time to move on. It was cold hitching up but...