Back in Civilization!

Hey! How are you? I've missed you guys! We find ourselves a week down the road since our last chat, now located in Alamosa, Colorado, just outside Great Sand Dunes National Park. It's been quite a week of adventure, and I'm going to catch you up on what we've been doing via a series of time-traveling posts. There's so much to tell you, and I wish I could have been keeping up all along. We had no wi-fi in Taylor Park (our previous destination), and we had a very weak cell signal. Anything I could do on my phone, I could do online, but that precluded any sort of blogging. So let's just see what we've been up to. I'll start with today's travels from the time we left Taylor Park.

We had a short day of driving, and we back-tracked the way we came from Canon City until we reached Poncha Springs when we turned south to head toward Alamosa. We've seen some breathtakingly beautiful scenery here in Colorado. This first image was taken on the road leading out of Taylor Park.

We crossed the Taylor River.

This is ranching country, and so we saw some interesting barns in our travels along with lots of split rail fences.

When we started heading south on the final leg of today's trip, a sign informed us there were wildfires ahead and instructed us NOT to call 911. We only saw smoke in this one region, about 50 miles from where we are staying for the next two nights.

And that's pretty much all I have to tell you about today's drive. So let's travel through time, back to last Saturday when left Canon City on our way to Taylor Park. We first had some business to take care of in Canon City. I shot this next image as we went down the road. You can see the small town of Canon City in the middle of the image.

They had their own dinosaur statue.

On our way to Taylor Park, we passed through some charming little towns. I especially liked this little town of Salida, Colorado. I can only imagine why this cow is located on the roof of this building...a butcher, possibly?

But it was just a cute little town all around. I love these old buildings.

Check out the date on the top of this next one.

Most of the day's drive looked like what you see in the image below. We were up and over several times. In fact, so far on this trip, we've crossed the Continental Divide three times. Colorado doesn't mark these passages, but I'm watching them on the map.

Now here, things were getting screwy, only we didn't know it yet. Our navigation unit was taking us on a wild goose chase. We were on some small county roads. Even ATVing was permitted on these roads. We passed through forests of aspens.

Also, forests of Ponderosa Pine.

Eventually, we were on an unpaved road, and found ourselves in the ghost town of St. Elmo. This was our first inkling that we were headed in the wrong direction. We had planned to ride our ATV's to St. Elmo from Taylor Park, and so we were very surprised to find ourselves here. (I'll say more about this in a future post.) Mike went out investigating and was told we could take our ATV's off the trailer and get to our final destination, but there was no way we were taking our dually truck and camper over the roads in between. While he was out investigating, I took some pictures.

St. Elmo is at 10,000 feet of elevation in the Sawatch mountain range. It was founded in 1880 and grew quickly to a population of 2,000 citizens. The draw was gold and silver mining. The mining industry reached its peak just 10 years down the road. The Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad line ran through town and there were over 150 patented mine claims. Four decades later, the mining industry began to decline, and the railroad stopped running in 1922. After that, the town was slowly abandoned.

People still live in St. Elmo and it relies heavily on tourism. There were signs posted in various places about efforts to rehabilitate these old buildings.

There were a lot of people here on this Saturday before Labor Day. I wanted to get a better picture of the church, but the crowds discouraged me.

So we had to retrace our path...a 60-mile round trip of a wrong turn...but eventually, we were on the right road leading to Taylor Park. The scenery was so beautiful, we barely noticed the approximate 2-hour delay. We crossed over the Taylor River.

And eventually, Taylor Park Reservoir came into view.

We were driving on open range, and indeed, we rode ATV's on open range almost the entire time we were there. Cows, calves, and bulls were wandering everywhere, like community pets. They were completely blase about cars, ATV's, and people. At times we rode our ATV's within feet of them, and they just stood looking and chewing, not the least bit concerned about our presence.

In the image below, you can see where the RV park is located on the extreme left.

We were 50 miles from the nearest town with absolutely nothing around us except beautiful mountains, forest, streams, and wildlife.

So I'll stop for today by telling you that the kitties have been cool cucumbers about our travels. They've done extremely well. Whenever we reach a new place, I think they are about as excited as we are. When it's time to pack up and move along, they take it all in stride, moving to the bed where they ride for the duration.

I have a few miscellaneous images I'd like to share. First, Sadie gets all the toys out of her toy basket every night. What I want you to notice about the image below is the gap under the door that leads into the bathroom. There is about a 3-inch gap, and she is so tiny, she can come and go under the door as she pleases.

Also, I started and finished Block #6 of the Appalachian Memories quilt. Sorry about the wrinkles. I have no iron with me. One of my Facebook friends said the wrinkles made it look like a snow scene, and so I'm going with that.

So I may or may not post more than once per day until we're caught up. For now, I'll just say that we'll be visiting Great Sand Dunes National Park tomorrow, and then we'll be on to our next destination on Monday. We're having a wonderful time. I can't wait to tell you about all the riding we did.