Saturday September 26, 2009-Priest Gulch campground

We woke this morning and e=were supposed to go for a mountain ride with Gene and Linda. Stella wasn't feeling well so we decided not to go with them. We ate some breakfast and decided to ride up to Telluride and to eat lunch at Ridgeway. As you can see from this picture, the leaves are beginning to change here in the park. This shot was taken from the back of our trailer looking upriver at the cabins.

Here we are going down Hwy. 145 toward Rico. This is where we stopped on our first day here to call back to our friends and family after we found out that we didn't have any phone service. You can see some of the trees that are changing. Just hold on, it gets better.....

Another shot of the snow-covered peaks, towering over us. We just can't get enough of these views, and again the photos do not do the mountains justice.

The sheer rocks are a very nice background to the yellow and gold trees.

Now we're talking.....beauty is everywhere up here. Stella took about 150 pictures out the window and through the windshield glass while we were on our drive today.

Another shot with the gorgeous trees on both sides of the road. If we stopped to take a photo of everything that is pretty up here, we would never get anywhere and traffic would be backed up forever.

Another shot of the yellow/golden trees with towering, snow-covered mountains behind them.

This is just outside Ridgeway CO. which is the home of the late actor Dennis Weaver and where he had a dinner club for many years. We attended some of the dinners and enjoyed the play after when we came to Blue Spruce a few years ago. Since Weaver's death in 2006 from cancer, the club has been turned into a Christian center.

This is the True Grit cafe in Ridgeway. Parts of the John Wayne movie True Grit was actually filmed in this restaurant and in and around Ridgeway. There are numerous pictures of "The Duke" as Wayne was known and also an entire wall of Dennis Weaver photos from his long career in Hollywood. When we got there, there was a waiting list but we soon got a table. There was another couple that just walked in, so we invited them to sit with us for lunch, since we had not ordered yet. Bill and Bert were a very nice couple from Kansas who have been traveling for awhile. they are a very nice couple and we had a very enjoyable time with them over lunch.

This is the old Ridgeway Fire Dept. that is just down the street from the cafe.

This sculpture was done by a local artist and is between the row of buildings where the cafe is located and the Fire Dept.

Still more golden trees on the mountainside.

Just one more beautiful trees on the road back toward Telluride.

This pine tree is hanging on with just a few of it's roots. It is on the side of the road between Telluride and Rico. I'll bet it won't be there for much longer.

We were gone until late in the afternoon, and when we got back, we sat outside at a campfire at Gene and Linda's until about 9 o'clock.

We had a very nice day and plan to do one more drive over the mountains next week.

So long.