ScottOkla
Silver Member
I'm guessing Eddie is in Salida this week since I haven't seen him post in a few days. We are off early tomorrow.
Salida Colorado, we're on our way!!!
- Thread starter EddieWalker
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jayste
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Scott, I'm sure you're right. I was thinking the same thing. Maybe you guys will bump into one another up there. Have a good and safe trip.
Jay
Jay
OP
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
We just got back a couple hours ago. It was an amazing trip and I'll post pictures in the next couple of days. I'll do a summery of what we did now while it's still fresh in my brain.
We left on Saturday morning and drove to Amarillo, got our hotel room and then toured the canyon. We really enjoyed it and took hundreds of pics. Some of them were playing around on the rocks so it looked like we were on some dangerous overhangs, but were really very safe. The kids loved it and could have spent all week just climbing on the rocks. Then towards evening, we had a steak dinner put on by the people who own that steak house with the 72 oz steak that is on the food network all the time. If you eat the 72 oz steak, it's free. Anyway, the steaks at Palo Duro were not that large, but still a fine meal out in the canyon. After dinner, we went to the play TEXAS. It's a great play that all of us enjoyed. I was worried about the kids, but they liked it and were never bored. After the play, they put on a fireworks show to finish off our first day.
Sunday, day two, we drove to Ratan, New Mexico. We like to look for wildlife along the road and stop when we see a good buck or something we like. We stop allot. LOL We were seeing a few pronghorn in North Texas and into New Mexico, but then about 20 miles East of Ratan, we saw hundreds and hundreds of pronghorn all in one canyon. It was crazy how many were in that area. More then any other place that I've ever been, and I've been all over Wyoming and Montana. We got off I-25 as soon as we could take a back road to Salida, where we saw a few more animals, including about a dozen elk. We checked into the Holiday Inn at Salida and then drove the roads until dark to see what we could see. Bighorn Canyon is right there, but we never saw any bighorns there, just allot of mule deer. The kids finished off the day swimming in the pool while Steph and I went over brochures.
Monday, we went to the Royal Gorge. This is something that I've always wanted to see and a big reason we went to Salida. It was kind of expensive at $94 for the four of us to get in, but well worth it for the fun we had. The bridge is 1,053 feet in the air above the canyon, which is pretty severe, but it also sways all over the place. The boards are also loose, so when you walk across it, the bridge is moving side to side and up and down. The boards moving around add to the experience, and just about stoped us from getting across. The girls didn't like it one bit!!!! Then after we were about half way across, and at the highest point, a car drove across it. I thought the girls were going to freak, they REALLY DIDN"T LIKE THAT!!! We took lots of pics and when no cars were driving across, enjoyed the views and watching the rafters in the canyon. There was a crazy helicopter pilot flying overhead who would dive into the canyon. Steph thought he was crashing, but it was just part of the tour he takes people on. There is also the swing that is up higher then the bridge and people swing out over the cliff so that they are well over a thousand feet up. Some were quiet, others screamed like they were dying. It was fun to watch, but not for us. We did some exploring and then worked our way back across the bridge. We spent about half a day there and had a great time. It was expensive, but money well spent.
Next we drove over to Pikes Peak. Our plan was to take the Cog Railroad to the top, but on the way, we stoped for lunch in Manatou Springs. While there, we decided that we would really prefer to drive to the top instead of being crammed into a train. While we cant comment on the train, the drive was amazing. We saw a nice mule deer buck along the road, turkey and mind blowing views. Being able to pull over and take pictures of the vistas was what made us decide to drive, and once we started taking pics, we were glad that we chose to drive. It's 19 miles each way, which isn't bad, but it's steep and windy. At the peak, Alissa got sick. It was 46 degrees outside and windy. We took a few pics, bout a few souvineers and drove back down. There is a check station where the ranger measured the temperature of our breaks. We were at 398 degrees, so he said we had to pull over and wait until the cooled down to 300 degrees. Our car only has a low gear, no first and second. So the slowest it will go in low gear is 40 mph. To go slower, I had to use the breaks, which of course, got hot. While at the check station, a red fox walked out across the road, then posed for us. It was totally unexpected, but much appreciated!!! We then drove back to Salida the long way along Highway 24, which we really enjoyed.
Tuesday, Steph decided that she was open to the idea of rafting. She was dead set against it before we left, but was open to it after seeing others out on the river. We were overwhelmed with choices, but after doing some research, chose a company called Wilderness Aware. They were at the high end pricewise, but were also voted Colorado company of the year twice. It was about $200 for the four of us to go on a half day trip down Browns Canyon, which was rated as a class III / IV at the time. They said it was an excellent beginner run, and where most people go for their first time.
Once booked for the next day, we went exploring along the Chalk Cliffs towards St Elmo, an old ghost town. We were told that the Chalk Cliffs were the best place to see bighorn sheep, but we didn't see any on the way up. St. Elmo was an interesting place with the old buildings in a beautiful location, but the highlight was a feeding area for chipmunks. They had small bags of sunflower seeds for .50cents each. We bought three bags and Steph and the kids sat down on some boards with birdseed in their hands for the chipmunks. It didn't take long until they had chipmunks feeding out of their hands. Sometimes two!! Peyton was able to lift his hands with one feeding and touch his nose to it. Then after seeing that, Alissa did the same thing. Steph had as many as three on her lap, but they were so fast and all over the place that you couldn't keep track of them. There were at lest 30 people thre feeding them, and from what we could tell, it was just as exciting for everyone as it was for us. The kids didn't want to leave, but it was getting late and we wanted to do some more exploring.
We stoped on the way down to hike up to Agnes Vail water fall where the kids had a great time climbing on the rocks. They love to climb on the rocks!!
Then we drove up the next canyon to Cottonwood Lake. It's a nice lake and the kids had fun playing in the water. They froze their butts off on the ice cold water, but we still had to pull them away to do some more exploring.
Further up the canyon is Cottonwood Pass. It's an amazing drive that took us up above treeline where we could see forever. On the other side of the pass, we started seeing mule deer. Just at treeline, Steph spotted two huge bucks, then Peyton spotted a third. All three where huge trophies, but one of them was extreme. He was 5 to six inches past his ears on each side with deep forks and several cheaters on each side. If he wasn't a 200 buck, I don't know what is. He was easily one of the very larges mule deer that I've ever seen. The two next to him were nice, but not in his league.
Wednesday was rafting day. Steph was more then just a big nervous, but also just as excited at the kids. While driving the the rafting company building, we had two real nice mule deer bucks walk across the street in front of us. Every day, we were seeing nice 4x4 bucks out in the open. For me, that was jus about as good as it gets. Steph loves to see the animals too, so we're a perfect team.
Wilderness Aware was very organized and professional. They gave us two different orientations and very detailed instructions on what to do if you fall out and how to work the paddles. Once in the water, we did spent some time practicing before the first set of rapids. Once through those, Steph relaxed and started to have a great time. Until then, she was terrified that the kids would fall overboard and drown. Seeing them go through it and how they handled it, along with our guide, made her feel reasured that everything was going to be fine. Peyton is just 8 years old and not really up to paddling, so he sat on a middle section of the boat. The guide tied a strap to the section he was sitting on so he'd have something to hold on to. While spinning around through a rapid called Pinball, we bumped into a rock backwards. It was an instant stop to our movement that Peyton didn't see coming. He flipped backwards instantly and all we could see was his arms and legs going straight up into the air as he landed on his back in the middle of the boat!!! He was fine and we all got a good laugh out of it. He held on allot tighter after that and never had a problem. On another run called Hemroid, the guide in the boat in front of us got through out of the boat. It went down, then up again and she just kept going up as the boat went back down again. It took about half a second for her to go from guiding the boat to swimming in the rapids. It was exciting and interesting to see, but nothing nothing serious. She was able to give instructions to her boat and get them over the the side to wait for her to get back in. Then near the end of the run in some calm water, Alissa and Peyton jumped out to swim to shore. The water was like ice, but they are young enough to not feel it. A few others jumped out too, but Steph and I didn't see the appeal in it. hahaha
Thursday left us with nothing more to do in Salida. We went through the brochures and kept coming back to two places that we wanted to see, but that were not in the area. Black Canyon and Messa Verde. We decided that we were close enough and we'd just wing it. The lake at Gunnison was impressive, but the mountains around it were even better. Then we drove across the dam to the North side of Black Canyon. We were overwhelmed with how amazing and beautiful it is. Truly a must see if anybody has never been there!!!! We stoped at just about every turn out and scenic view areas. It just kept getting better and better. I think it's ten times more beautiful then the Grand Canyon and can't really think of another place that I've been that compares to it. Truly awe inspiring.
From there we wondered around the mountains, while working our way to Montrose and then Ouray. In one field, we saw 7 mule deer bucks. Three were keepers, one was ok and two were cactus bucks. This was the first time that I've seen a cactus buck, and while still not fantastic racks, they have the bases with dozens and dozens of eye gaurds with just a few tines coming out. If they live a few more years, they will be something very unique. We kept running into good 4x4 mule deer bucks along the side of the road, which just added to the beauty of the mountains. We'd been looking for elk, but everyone said they were up high. We looked up high, but never found any elk. Then just before Durango, down low, we came across a heard of 50 elk right at dark. We tried to get pics, and Steph might be able to lighten them up enough to see, but it was really too dark for pics.
Friday we left Durango for Messa Verde and the Pueblo cliff dwellings. The drive into the park seemed to take forever, and when we go there, the line was all around the building to buy tickets for the tours. There are three tours, but each have limited amounts of spaces. The only one available for us when we got to buy our tickets was the Long House tour. Tickets are $3 each, so that was nice. The other tours offer different things, but it would have been a three and four hour wait for those tours. We took the one starting in an hour, and drove 45 minutes to get there in time. It was amazing and kind of mind blowing to hear about the buildings. I didn't realize this, but they built the cliff dwellings that we saw in 1240 and abandoned them in 1280 due to severe drought and probably depeleting the nutrients in the soil from farming the same place for 700 years. Before building the cliff dwellings, they all lived on top of the messa in pit homes. So in 1240, they started piling rocks on top of each other with some mud as mortor to hold them together, and then used cedar logs with more mud to buid a roof over them. What blows my mind away is that so many of those walls are still intact and secure with must the dirt that is the mortar between the rocks. Nothing was added to the mud, just the local dirt with water, and it's held for over 700 years!!! I fix modern homes for a living and deal with all sorts of 50 year old houses that are falling apart. I can't imagine a modern day house that will still be standing 700 years from now!!! It just boggles my mind.
Then we started driving home. 11 hours later, we spent the night in Dumas TX.
Sunday, today, we left Dumas and drove the west of the way home.
Last year, we bought a fully loaded Ford Freestyle car that has a DVD player in the roof for the kids to watch movies in the back seat. They watched movie after movie without a complaint. When we were in the mountains, or interesting areas, we'd turn it off, but otherwise, they were happy to watch movies, eat snacks and take naps. They never complained about beeing bored or wanting out of the car. They did ask about how long it would take, or where we are at, but mosty they were content and happy. We liked the DVD player before the trip, but after driving 2,800 miles with the kids, we really love it now!!!
We filled up several SD Cards on the camera, so it might take a few days to get them organized and narrowed down to the better ones. I'll post pics when we get them all figured out.
Thank you to everyone for your advice. Once again, it was because of your commentst that we were able to do so much in such a short amount of time.
Eddie
We left on Saturday morning and drove to Amarillo, got our hotel room and then toured the canyon. We really enjoyed it and took hundreds of pics. Some of them were playing around on the rocks so it looked like we were on some dangerous overhangs, but were really very safe. The kids loved it and could have spent all week just climbing on the rocks. Then towards evening, we had a steak dinner put on by the people who own that steak house with the 72 oz steak that is on the food network all the time. If you eat the 72 oz steak, it's free. Anyway, the steaks at Palo Duro were not that large, but still a fine meal out in the canyon. After dinner, we went to the play TEXAS. It's a great play that all of us enjoyed. I was worried about the kids, but they liked it and were never bored. After the play, they put on a fireworks show to finish off our first day.
Sunday, day two, we drove to Ratan, New Mexico. We like to look for wildlife along the road and stop when we see a good buck or something we like. We stop allot. LOL We were seeing a few pronghorn in North Texas and into New Mexico, but then about 20 miles East of Ratan, we saw hundreds and hundreds of pronghorn all in one canyon. It was crazy how many were in that area. More then any other place that I've ever been, and I've been all over Wyoming and Montana. We got off I-25 as soon as we could take a back road to Salida, where we saw a few more animals, including about a dozen elk. We checked into the Holiday Inn at Salida and then drove the roads until dark to see what we could see. Bighorn Canyon is right there, but we never saw any bighorns there, just allot of mule deer. The kids finished off the day swimming in the pool while Steph and I went over brochures.
Monday, we went to the Royal Gorge. This is something that I've always wanted to see and a big reason we went to Salida. It was kind of expensive at $94 for the four of us to get in, but well worth it for the fun we had. The bridge is 1,053 feet in the air above the canyon, which is pretty severe, but it also sways all over the place. The boards are also loose, so when you walk across it, the bridge is moving side to side and up and down. The boards moving around add to the experience, and just about stoped us from getting across. The girls didn't like it one bit!!!! Then after we were about half way across, and at the highest point, a car drove across it. I thought the girls were going to freak, they REALLY DIDN"T LIKE THAT!!! We took lots of pics and when no cars were driving across, enjoyed the views and watching the rafters in the canyon. There was a crazy helicopter pilot flying overhead who would dive into the canyon. Steph thought he was crashing, but it was just part of the tour he takes people on. There is also the swing that is up higher then the bridge and people swing out over the cliff so that they are well over a thousand feet up. Some were quiet, others screamed like they were dying. It was fun to watch, but not for us. We did some exploring and then worked our way back across the bridge. We spent about half a day there and had a great time. It was expensive, but money well spent.
Next we drove over to Pikes Peak. Our plan was to take the Cog Railroad to the top, but on the way, we stoped for lunch in Manatou Springs. While there, we decided that we would really prefer to drive to the top instead of being crammed into a train. While we cant comment on the train, the drive was amazing. We saw a nice mule deer buck along the road, turkey and mind blowing views. Being able to pull over and take pictures of the vistas was what made us decide to drive, and once we started taking pics, we were glad that we chose to drive. It's 19 miles each way, which isn't bad, but it's steep and windy. At the peak, Alissa got sick. It was 46 degrees outside and windy. We took a few pics, bout a few souvineers and drove back down. There is a check station where the ranger measured the temperature of our breaks. We were at 398 degrees, so he said we had to pull over and wait until the cooled down to 300 degrees. Our car only has a low gear, no first and second. So the slowest it will go in low gear is 40 mph. To go slower, I had to use the breaks, which of course, got hot. While at the check station, a red fox walked out across the road, then posed for us. It was totally unexpected, but much appreciated!!! We then drove back to Salida the long way along Highway 24, which we really enjoyed.
Tuesday, Steph decided that she was open to the idea of rafting. She was dead set against it before we left, but was open to it after seeing others out on the river. We were overwhelmed with choices, but after doing some research, chose a company called Wilderness Aware. They were at the high end pricewise, but were also voted Colorado company of the year twice. It was about $200 for the four of us to go on a half day trip down Browns Canyon, which was rated as a class III / IV at the time. They said it was an excellent beginner run, and where most people go for their first time.
Once booked for the next day, we went exploring along the Chalk Cliffs towards St Elmo, an old ghost town. We were told that the Chalk Cliffs were the best place to see bighorn sheep, but we didn't see any on the way up. St. Elmo was an interesting place with the old buildings in a beautiful location, but the highlight was a feeding area for chipmunks. They had small bags of sunflower seeds for .50cents each. We bought three bags and Steph and the kids sat down on some boards with birdseed in their hands for the chipmunks. It didn't take long until they had chipmunks feeding out of their hands. Sometimes two!! Peyton was able to lift his hands with one feeding and touch his nose to it. Then after seeing that, Alissa did the same thing. Steph had as many as three on her lap, but they were so fast and all over the place that you couldn't keep track of them. There were at lest 30 people thre feeding them, and from what we could tell, it was just as exciting for everyone as it was for us. The kids didn't want to leave, but it was getting late and we wanted to do some more exploring.
We stoped on the way down to hike up to Agnes Vail water fall where the kids had a great time climbing on the rocks. They love to climb on the rocks!!
Then we drove up the next canyon to Cottonwood Lake. It's a nice lake and the kids had fun playing in the water. They froze their butts off on the ice cold water, but we still had to pull them away to do some more exploring.
Further up the canyon is Cottonwood Pass. It's an amazing drive that took us up above treeline where we could see forever. On the other side of the pass, we started seeing mule deer. Just at treeline, Steph spotted two huge bucks, then Peyton spotted a third. All three where huge trophies, but one of them was extreme. He was 5 to six inches past his ears on each side with deep forks and several cheaters on each side. If he wasn't a 200 buck, I don't know what is. He was easily one of the very larges mule deer that I've ever seen. The two next to him were nice, but not in his league.
Wednesday was rafting day. Steph was more then just a big nervous, but also just as excited at the kids. While driving the the rafting company building, we had two real nice mule deer bucks walk across the street in front of us. Every day, we were seeing nice 4x4 bucks out in the open. For me, that was jus about as good as it gets. Steph loves to see the animals too, so we're a perfect team.
Wilderness Aware was very organized and professional. They gave us two different orientations and very detailed instructions on what to do if you fall out and how to work the paddles. Once in the water, we did spent some time practicing before the first set of rapids. Once through those, Steph relaxed and started to have a great time. Until then, she was terrified that the kids would fall overboard and drown. Seeing them go through it and how they handled it, along with our guide, made her feel reasured that everything was going to be fine. Peyton is just 8 years old and not really up to paddling, so he sat on a middle section of the boat. The guide tied a strap to the section he was sitting on so he'd have something to hold on to. While spinning around through a rapid called Pinball, we bumped into a rock backwards. It was an instant stop to our movement that Peyton didn't see coming. He flipped backwards instantly and all we could see was his arms and legs going straight up into the air as he landed on his back in the middle of the boat!!! He was fine and we all got a good laugh out of it. He held on allot tighter after that and never had a problem. On another run called Hemroid, the guide in the boat in front of us got through out of the boat. It went down, then up again and she just kept going up as the boat went back down again. It took about half a second for her to go from guiding the boat to swimming in the rapids. It was exciting and interesting to see, but nothing nothing serious. She was able to give instructions to her boat and get them over the the side to wait for her to get back in. Then near the end of the run in some calm water, Alissa and Peyton jumped out to swim to shore. The water was like ice, but they are young enough to not feel it. A few others jumped out too, but Steph and I didn't see the appeal in it. hahaha
Thursday left us with nothing more to do in Salida. We went through the brochures and kept coming back to two places that we wanted to see, but that were not in the area. Black Canyon and Messa Verde. We decided that we were close enough and we'd just wing it. The lake at Gunnison was impressive, but the mountains around it were even better. Then we drove across the dam to the North side of Black Canyon. We were overwhelmed with how amazing and beautiful it is. Truly a must see if anybody has never been there!!!! We stoped at just about every turn out and scenic view areas. It just kept getting better and better. I think it's ten times more beautiful then the Grand Canyon and can't really think of another place that I've been that compares to it. Truly awe inspiring.
From there we wondered around the mountains, while working our way to Montrose and then Ouray. In one field, we saw 7 mule deer bucks. Three were keepers, one was ok and two were cactus bucks. This was the first time that I've seen a cactus buck, and while still not fantastic racks, they have the bases with dozens and dozens of eye gaurds with just a few tines coming out. If they live a few more years, they will be something very unique. We kept running into good 4x4 mule deer bucks along the side of the road, which just added to the beauty of the mountains. We'd been looking for elk, but everyone said they were up high. We looked up high, but never found any elk. Then just before Durango, down low, we came across a heard of 50 elk right at dark. We tried to get pics, and Steph might be able to lighten them up enough to see, but it was really too dark for pics.
Friday we left Durango for Messa Verde and the Pueblo cliff dwellings. The drive into the park seemed to take forever, and when we go there, the line was all around the building to buy tickets for the tours. There are three tours, but each have limited amounts of spaces. The only one available for us when we got to buy our tickets was the Long House tour. Tickets are $3 each, so that was nice. The other tours offer different things, but it would have been a three and four hour wait for those tours. We took the one starting in an hour, and drove 45 minutes to get there in time. It was amazing and kind of mind blowing to hear about the buildings. I didn't realize this, but they built the cliff dwellings that we saw in 1240 and abandoned them in 1280 due to severe drought and probably depeleting the nutrients in the soil from farming the same place for 700 years. Before building the cliff dwellings, they all lived on top of the messa in pit homes. So in 1240, they started piling rocks on top of each other with some mud as mortor to hold them together, and then used cedar logs with more mud to buid a roof over them. What blows my mind away is that so many of those walls are still intact and secure with must the dirt that is the mortar between the rocks. Nothing was added to the mud, just the local dirt with water, and it's held for over 700 years!!! I fix modern homes for a living and deal with all sorts of 50 year old houses that are falling apart. I can't imagine a modern day house that will still be standing 700 years from now!!! It just boggles my mind.
Then we started driving home. 11 hours later, we spent the night in Dumas TX.
Sunday, today, we left Dumas and drove the west of the way home.
Last year, we bought a fully loaded Ford Freestyle car that has a DVD player in the roof for the kids to watch movies in the back seat. They watched movie after movie without a complaint. When we were in the mountains, or interesting areas, we'd turn it off, but otherwise, they were happy to watch movies, eat snacks and take naps. They never complained about beeing bored or wanting out of the car. They did ask about how long it would take, or where we are at, but mosty they were content and happy. We liked the DVD player before the trip, but after driving 2,800 miles with the kids, we really love it now!!!
We filled up several SD Cards on the camera, so it might take a few days to get them organized and narrowed down to the better ones. I'll post pics when we get them all figured out.
Thank you to everyone for your advice. Once again, it was because of your commentst that we were able to do so much in such a short amount of time.
Eddie
dirt ditch
Platinum Member
That area of Colorado is a great vacation spot. Glad you all had a wonderful time and thanks for writing it up for us. It brings back a lot of the fondest memories of my youth. I was the same age as Peyton back in the late 60's early 70's When my family would take 3 week vacations to different parts of the western united states. My grandmother kept a daily journal and took lots of photographs (half are black & white). When we got home she would always make me a photo album of each trip then convert her journal into a letter on her old manual typewriter and place it on the front page. Now my kids like to compare photos we take of places on our trips to the 40 year old photographs in my albums to see just how much things have changed.
LBrown59
Super Star Member
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Sounds like it turned out to be a great fun time.
How far was it to Salida Colorado from your place.?
How far was it to Salida Colorado from your place.?
OP
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
Thanks.
8 hours to Amarillo, then another 9 hours to Salida. Not bad breaking it into two days, but not a drive I'd want to do all at once.
Eddie
8 hours to Amarillo, then another 9 hours to Salida. Not bad breaking it into two days, but not a drive I'd want to do all at once.
Eddie
ScottOkla
Silver Member
We got home a few hours ago. We drove Tulsa area to Salida Thursday, spent Friday along the roads to St Elmo and Cottonwood Pass, hiking near the pass, and then a few hours until dark at the Mt Princeton Hot Springs playing in the river. Saturday we drove to the pass out past Monarch and took the tram to the top of the mountain at the pass. We then spent the afternoon at the Great Sand Dunes and the evening in the Spanish Peaks area. We spent the night at Raton and got back home today a couple of hours before dark. It was a whirlwind trip.
It was a great experience for our kids. I take them somewhere each year as a reward for reaching a pre-determined goal in their elementary reading AR program, and this past year they got so many reading points that I had to do something extraordinary. Man that was a lot of driving, though. 1600 miles total.
I am soooo envious of the wildlife Eddie saw. The only other time I was in the area I saw goats and sheep both. This time I saw neither, and I really looked. I also looked really hard for deer and elk on a few drives and only saw a few deer that were nothing to brag about. Now I am mad that we didn't go down the other side of Cottonwood Pass. I saw a few turkeys near trinidad, and lots of pronghorn scattered from the Oklahoma border to Raton.
Eddie, I also remember the Black Canyon as the most amazing thing we saw part during our trip in the early 90s, but this time we didn't go that far. Back then my wife and I had a little Ford Festiva and that made the drive around the canyon even more interesting.
The driving was really fun going out this time since it had been a few years since I have been out that way, but driving back was not fun at all once we left Raton. The drive from I-25 (Walsenburg) to Salida along the two-lane was really fun and scenic. My wife drove that part while I looked for wildlife, and she seemed to think she was Jeff Gordon that day. We just didn't get to stay long enough, but I think the kids will be trying to better their marks next year so we can go again and stay another day.
For you guys that provided suggestions, thank you.
Scott
It was a great experience for our kids. I take them somewhere each year as a reward for reaching a pre-determined goal in their elementary reading AR program, and this past year they got so many reading points that I had to do something extraordinary. Man that was a lot of driving, though. 1600 miles total.
I am soooo envious of the wildlife Eddie saw. The only other time I was in the area I saw goats and sheep both. This time I saw neither, and I really looked. I also looked really hard for deer and elk on a few drives and only saw a few deer that were nothing to brag about. Now I am mad that we didn't go down the other side of Cottonwood Pass. I saw a few turkeys near trinidad, and lots of pronghorn scattered from the Oklahoma border to Raton.
Eddie, I also remember the Black Canyon as the most amazing thing we saw part during our trip in the early 90s, but this time we didn't go that far. Back then my wife and I had a little Ford Festiva and that made the drive around the canyon even more interesting.
The driving was really fun going out this time since it had been a few years since I have been out that way, but driving back was not fun at all once we left Raton. The drive from I-25 (Walsenburg) to Salida along the two-lane was really fun and scenic. My wife drove that part while I looked for wildlife, and she seemed to think she was Jeff Gordon that day. We just didn't get to stay long enough, but I think the kids will be trying to better their marks next year so we can go again and stay another day.
For you guys that provided suggestions, thank you.
Scott
Sounds like great trips for all of You, its a shame you couldn,t of hooked up & met somewhere . Brings back great memorys for Me too , so thanks for that .
I dont drive anymore due to some really bad experiences in the past & as odd as it may sound I haven,t left the property for going on 6 years , some kind of weird phobia I guess
. Anyway My travelling days are over so I,m really looking forward to the pics . Bob
I dont drive anymore due to some really bad experiences in the past & as odd as it may sound I haven,t left the property for going on 6 years , some kind of weird phobia I guess
. Anyway My travelling days are over so I,m really looking forward to the pics . Bob
OP
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
Scott,
Looks like we just missed you. We left Salida on Thursday morning, heading to Gunnison and then down to Durango for the night. That would have been pretty cool to have at least said hi to you.
Bob,
I can understand not wanting to leave your place. I feel the same way. Some days, I just don't want to go anywhere and if I didn't have to make a living or pick things up at the store, I'd probably stay right here too. Traveling and seeing new areas is fun, but the entire time that we were gone, I was thinking about plans for projects that I want to get done. Fortunately, I came up with a few ideas that I really like, so there may have been something useful that came out of the trip other than quality family time. LOL
Steph and I have been going through the pictures from 4 SD cards and three CD's. We bought a CD of 14 pictures of us rafting on the river that the rafting company took and sells to those who want them after their trip, and then we bought two waterproof disposable cameras for inside the boat. Peyton wasn't paddleing, so we straped the camera to his vest and let him take pics of whatever caught his eye. Hey's 8, so there are quite a few pics with his finger across the lense, but there are also some that are pretty good too!!!
Right now, I'm down to just over 1,200 pics and trying to find about 50 or 60 to post. Some are real easy, but others are tougher. Then there is my personal obsession of making sure they are in order and right side up. With all the cards and CD's, plus for an unknown reason, some pics are just out of order for no reason, it's taking a bit of time to get that all straightened out.
Eddie
Looks like we just missed you. We left Salida on Thursday morning, heading to Gunnison and then down to Durango for the night. That would have been pretty cool to have at least said hi to you.
Bob,
I can understand not wanting to leave your place. I feel the same way. Some days, I just don't want to go anywhere and if I didn't have to make a living or pick things up at the store, I'd probably stay right here too. Traveling and seeing new areas is fun, but the entire time that we were gone, I was thinking about plans for projects that I want to get done. Fortunately, I came up with a few ideas that I really like, so there may have been something useful that came out of the trip other than quality family time. LOL
Steph and I have been going through the pictures from 4 SD cards and three CD's. We bought a CD of 14 pictures of us rafting on the river that the rafting company took and sells to those who want them after their trip, and then we bought two waterproof disposable cameras for inside the boat. Peyton wasn't paddleing, so we straped the camera to his vest and let him take pics of whatever caught his eye. Hey's 8, so there are quite a few pics with his finger across the lense, but there are also some that are pretty good too!!!
Right now, I'm down to just over 1,200 pics and trying to find about 50 or 60 to post. Some are real easy, but others are tougher. Then there is my personal obsession of making sure they are in order and right side up. With all the cards and CD's, plus for an unknown reason, some pics are just out of order for no reason, it's taking a bit of time to get that all straightened out.
Eddie
LBrown59
Super Star Member
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2004
- Messages
- 16,831
- Tractor
- 2003 Kubota BX1500/2004 Kubota Bx23/2005 Kubota BX1500
Glad you had a good time.
Nothing like a little trip to make you realize there's no place like home .
