Friday August 31, 2018-Mountain Views at Rivers Edge Resort

The annual Creede balloon festival began this morning. A crisp, cold morning here in the mountains is a beautiful way to begin a day.

Getting started!

First liftoff

The balloons dip down into the Rio Grande River

The balloons float right over our RV park

Beautiful

Wednesday August 29, 2018-Mountain View Resort

We made a drive over to Deer Creek, just past Slumgullion Pass. As you can see below, the lake is pretty high elevation 10,442 in the parking lot. We have seen moose here before and saw a total of 5 today, a deer on the way home. I saw two beavers in the lake but they wouldn't stick around for me to take their picture.

This is Deer Lake, where we have seen moose in the past, but we saw none here today.

This Mama Moose looked kind of bad today. She looked pretty skinny and seemed to have a problem with her left rear leg or hip.I wonder if moose have arthritis?

Her baby moose.

This Mama looked much better!

This moose cow was alone, or at least her baby was not in sight. It could have been camera shy or had been hidden by Mama.

We had a nice time today and will likely return here before we leave.

So long.

Friday August 24, 2018-Mountain View RV Resort

Today we made a trip to the Big Meadow Campground that is operated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. This campground offers campsites with  fire ring and parking for an RV. No utilities are offered, but the meadow-like area is beautiful with a nice lake that is stocked with fish. A boat ramp is nearby as well as ample places to fish off the bank.

Our new friends Ronny and Nelda moved here after staying for some time parked beside us at Mountain View. They used to live in League City and we had several friends in common. 

I am fascinated by hummingbirds. I love to watch them flit around while they are feeding. I put out two feeders but so far, all I have attracted are bees and ants.

Here is a view of the lake below Ronny and Nelda's site. They have fished in the lake a few times since they've been here and caught a few fish.

Our other friends from Mountain View came up today to fish. Pam and Merle own a lot at Mountain View and are avid fishermen/woman. They have fished at several of the local lakes. Joe and Jan are also good at fishing but don't go as often. They all had a good day today, catching 10 fish together. They will have a nice fish fry.

Later tonight, we went with Pam and Merle to the Elks Lodge here in the park. This is the building where we have church services on Sunday, for a performance by Pauline Reese. She is a singer of some note, having been nominated for a Grammy award as was her accompanying guitar player. None of us were impressed with her "performance" and we left the show early. She was about 45 minutes late to begin with, and incessantly talked before each song that she sang. Three of the four songs that we heard were her own writing and her singing of "the Red River Valley" was nothing out of the ordinary.

There is a festival today in town that Ms. Reese is a part of, but we decided after last night not to go. I am writing this in the afternoon and it has been raining for about 30 minutes, so, unfortunately for the festival, they are getting rained out. Perhaps they will organize another one next year. We'll see...

So long.

August 8, 2018-Mountain Views at Rivers Edge Resort

Today we took a drive over to the Blue Spruce RV Park in Bayfield CO. We used to come to this park every summer for about 8-9 years and we last came here in 2000 with our friends Mike and Patrice. 

I suppose we didn't watch as much television then as we do now because the trees completely block out any television reception. The park does offer to rent Direct TV receivers and they have antennas placed in the park to receive this signal, but we don't want to pay for another service. Bummer, as I would have loved to come back here for a stay.

The park has not changed too much since we've been here, except for ownership. We were able to find the sites that we stayed in, the interior park roads haven't changed at all, and we both noted that with this larger trailer, we might have trouble getting in and set up.

This is Vallecito Lake, or what's left of it. At 7800 feet, it is the largest body of water at this elevation in Colorado. The lake is not even half full this year, probably due to a lack of snow in the mountains.

Pitiful

We did see an eagle nest in the area. I was able to zoom in (see below) to see an eaglet on the edge of the nest. While I was walking out to take photos, Stella said she saw the female eagle rise over the nest but I missed her.

This is the gated entrance to the Wits End Ranch, a once-thriving high dollar resort that featured individual cabins, most with fireplaces and beautiful grounds. They had a chef on staff to prepare gourmet food for guests and lots of activities at the park. One time, when we came up for a vacation, Land Rover, an auto manufacturer, rented the entire resort for their dealers to attend a sales conference. It was a huge deal for the area, with a large fleet of new-model Land Rovers that were loaned to the people at the conference. 

We also noted some other sorrowful sights in the area. The Missionary Ridge fire in June-July of 2002 burned over 70,000 acres, leaving huge areas without trees. It had to be terrifying to the residents in homes to see a huge fire literally across the street from their homes. I couldn't stop to take photos of the burned out areas due to traffic and a lack of a shoulder to pull over. I didn't see any burned-out houses although there were probably some that were destroyed.

This is really a beautiful area to visit, especially Durango with it's tourist attractions. It is near the four corners area, Mesa Verde Indian National Park and of course, the Durango-Silverton narrow-gauge train.

We'll continue to make some scenic drives and will be sure to take photos. Please stay tuned!

So long.

Tuesday July 17, 2018-Mountain Views at Rivers Edge Resort

Today we took a drive up Pool Table mountain, just outside of Creede with our neighbors Joe and Jan. This is a beautiful drive of about 10-15 miles up to a flat plateau that once houses the site of Hansom's Sawmill. Only a large pile of sawdust remains at the site of the mill.

I believe this is the pile of sawdust. I didn't walk out to check to see what it was. 

The building is a restroom furnished by the government. There was a crew there to clean it while we were there.

As you can see, primitive camping is allowed for up to 7 days. The three trails leading off from here are Jeep or ATV trails. Since we were in Joe's pickup truck, we didn't try them.

This is what we believe to have been one of the last buildings from the sawmill. There were no markings as to what was there.

It was a beautiful day for a drive but on the way down, we drove down a dirt road for a short distance when a rain shower that just blew up came in, so we turned around and went back to the main road. We didn't want to be caught in a storm on top of the mountain!

There will be more stories and photos of the mountains, so stick around.

So long.