On the Road Again

As my mother said, my section in her address book tells quite a story. I spent a couple months this winter living in Mississippi. For the most part I did a lot of hanging around. We lived in a little house right on a little lake so I got out kayaking every now and then when it warmed up. I also joined the fire department and spent a few weeks working at a restaurant.

Our house in Mississippi

But I was saved from Mississippi when Jeff got sent on a detail to Colorado National Monument. So we spent a couple days driving cross country. We stopped at the Big Texan in Amarillo, TX where we watched several men attempt to consume a 72oz steak dinner in an hour for the lure of getting the meal free. Ahh Texas.

From there we cut across northern New Mexico and into Colorado. We stopped at Capulin Volcano NM and Great Sand Dunes NP but it was snowy and windy with little to no visibility. The next day the weather cleared for our drive across Wolf Creek Pass and into Durango. Durango was a cool little town. We walked around and I actually got sick of going into outdoor gear stores, something Jeff couldn’t believe was possible.

Cows on the road outside of Great Sand Dunes NP

The next day we drove north through several high passes and into some old mining towns. The views from the passes were awesome, and at several of them there were people getting out to go skiing and snowshoeing; I was jealous that I didn’t have the gear to travel off the road. All along the road you could see ski tracks coming down the slopes above—it looked really nice.

And then as you came around the bends coming down from the pass, the little towns appeared suddenly. Silverton was a mining town surrounded by tall mountains. The type of place where you could easily get stuck for a while in a big snow storm that closed the passes, and in front of the fire department, instead of the usual fire danger sign was an avalanche danger sign. Looking up from main street you could see ski tracks coming down the mountains above.

From there we crossed another pass and into Ouray, home of the Ouray ice park. We walked around the ice park for a while and watched a few people climbing. It was cool to see it in person after reading about it in magazines.

And from there we left the mountains and drove north into the red rock desert near Grand Junction. We live in the park, on top of a mesa, about four miles up a winding, narrow road that hugs the canyon’s edge. No internet and almost no cell service but it’s a great location. There are still patches of snow in the area; the red rock coming through the snow is really pretty.

The location is also great in that it is surrounded by many other really cool places that we hope to visit; the Rockies are a couple hours to the east and Utah is just 30 miles west. Tomorrow we are headed to the Moab area for Jeff’s first days off.