Taos New Mexico - Art and Architecture

A few photos of our day in Taos New Mexico.  I love the architecture of Taos.  There is art everywhere.  It’s a wonderful place for taking pictures, but definitely too expensive for my budget.

Denver Highlights

We had a great two week stay in the Denver area visiting family.  Enjoyed some golf at a couple of great courses and had some great food. We took several day trips during the week while the others went to work.

We made a repeat walk through Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs.  It is such an amazing and colorful place to walk.  Most of it is level and accessible for wheelchairs.  It’s hard to believe it is free.  We watched rock climbers – some just learning.





Our daughter and son in law took us to the aquarium in Denver.  They had never been there.  It was a pretty cool aquarium.  My favorite was the mermaids.  They gave a great performance underwater.  Their costumes were very realistic and boy could they swim.     

 Near Colorado Springs and Garden of the Gods and at the foot of Pikes Peak is a small town called Manitou Springs.  This small town is home to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings a rare historical treasure. Preserved under a protective red sandstone overhang, authentic Anasazi cliff dwellings, built more than 700 years ago, await you here. There are no "Do Not Touch" signs. You are free to touch and even go inside these fascinating architectural remnants of an American Indian culture that roamed the Four Corners area of the Southwest from 1200 B.C. to A.D. 1300.  Well worth the $9.50 entry fee.

While driving out in the area of Pikes Peak we stumbled on a quaint looking town called Cripple Creek.  It has some wonderful Victorian architecture.  It was a fun little town.  The down town area has several blocks of old buildings that have mostly been turned into casinos. 

River of Lost Souls

We decided we wanted to take the ole coal fired steam train (DSNGRR Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Rail Road)  and we had several options. So we bussed up to Silverton and we rode the train back to Durango. It's 50 miles between Durango and Silverton and follows the Animas River (Ute Indian translation is "River of Lost Souls").

It took the bus 1.5 hours to make the journey up the mountian passes nice ride and beautiful scenery. We arrived in Silveton and had 3 hours to bum around town.

We had lunch in a resturant called Handlebars, it was very eclectic. Wierd stuff on all the walls.

We walked around town in search of some geocaches found one out of 3, time was running out had to be back to catch train back to Durango.

We climbed on board the open Gondola car to head back and it started to rain. Rain was coming inside of the car and I noticed the couple next to us had rain poncho's so Asked where they got them. Luckily it was a store just a 100 feet from our rail car so jumped out and bought 2 for Peggy and I. Only needed to wear them for a short time as Murphy Law kicked in and as soon as the train started to roll it stopped raining. seeeeesh!!!


The train trip back took 3.5 hours down through the mountian valleys along the Animas river most of the way. Beautiful country and a must do for anyone coming this way.

Tour of Carvngs - Near Durango CO

In September 2012, we spent a week near Durango Co at Vallecito Lake Resort.  After we had been there several days, I was checking for geocaches and saw there was one a few hundred feet away titled "Tour of Carvings".   When we first arrived I noticed a chain saw carved statue of some sort near the entrance and guessed that was it.  After I read further about the cache I found it was a puzzle cache where you have to find the answers to questions in order to solve the puzzle and find the actual cache.  I found out there was more than one statue...there had been 15 of these carved....a very interesting story. 

We decided to find all the statues and solve the puzzle...

 "The Tour of Carvings Project is a comeback story of the Vallecito community following the Missionary Ridge Fire of`2002 near the city of Durango, in SW Colorado. Between June 9 and July 28, over 70,000 acres were burned at a cost of 40.8 million dollars. Over 4,000 firefighters and support personnel helped extinguish the fire. The participants and equipment included 87 fire fighting crews, 18 helicopters and 10 slurry bombers. One life was lost when an experienced tree feller was cutting one tree when another nearby tree fell on him."

You can read the rest of this interesting story at: Tour of Carvings

The Many Faces of Mount Rushmore

We decided to take one of the road trips on a map of the Black Hills area.  It was an area we hadn’t been in before and we knew it would be scenic.  What we didn’t know was that it would have the most awesome views of Mount Rushmore.  The drive goes through Custer State Park and the map showed a wildlife loop…I’m always ready to see wildlife. 

Randy wanted to avoid one section of road that he thought would be too congested with motorcycles on a twisting and turning road with several one lane tunnels.  After we stopped at the entrance to pay our fee and chatted with the Ranger, we decided to take that route.  She told us about the wonderful views of Mount Rushmore.  We are so glad we listened to her. 

We had been to Mount Rushmore National Memorial before…seen the videos and everything else there.  Because traffic can be so heavy there and parking can be a nightmare we had decided not to go there this time.  This drive gave us better views than right there at the National Memorial.

The whole drive through Custer State Park was beautiful.  I highly recommend it.

Sturgis 2012

We had already made a stop in Sturgis earlier this summer.  We went to the Motorcycle Museum,  and checked out the T-shirt shops. It was very quiet  - the streets were almost empty.   We decided to surprise our friends from Seattle who were going to be there and show up for the festivities.  We don't have a motorcycle, but it really didn't matter.  There's plenty to see and do without one.

Downtown Sturgis streets were packed with bikes and vendors.  You can stroll the streets and check out all the bikes, trikes and people.  We drove a few miles out of town to a very popular drinking spot – The Full Throttle Saloon.  We were there at 8:00 am so there weren’t a lot of people so we could wander around easily and take pictures.  We had to buy a T-shirt for Randy’s brother so it was a good time to go.

We had a great lunch downtown.  We sat at a counter right at the street at an intersection so we had a good view of all the people and bikes.

This is North Dakota???

The first thing Randy said when we crossed the border from Manitoba Canada to North Dakota. “ I didn’t think North Dakota looked like this.”  His first view of the state was of trees and water…not dry and brown the way he expected.  I was even surprised by the color and designs I saw almost everywhere.

One of the main reasons we decided to cross the border back into the US in North Dakota was to travel to Rugby ND – The Geographical Center of North America.  My son had posted about being there and we decided that we would be close enough to work a visit there into our itinerary.  We also logged a geocache close by with the same name.

We spent a few days in Minot ND visiting a friend of Randy’s.  My first impressions of this city were not the best…our RV Park was dreary, most of the golf courses were closed, and worst of all…we couldn’t find a decent place to eat.  The flooding in 2011 devastated most of the city…RV parks and golf courses were under water.  Minot is fighting its way back…but it is long haul for them.  There is a huge influx of construction workers to help rebuild.  They are building a lot of new hotels.  The best thing I found in Minot was the people…the women at the RV park, the girl who cut my hair and the clerk at the fabric store……. but there still isn’t a good place to eat.

After we left Minot we had a few days to spend somewhere and we decided on Medora ND.  I had never heard of this little town and was very surprised when we got there.  The population is only 100 people, but with the huge influx of summer tourists they have to ring in people to help staff the stores.  The town consists of one gas station, no real grocery store, and quite a few touristy type stores. 

Medora is the southern entrance for Teddy Roosevelt National Park.  I didn’t even know this was a National Park. The main point of interest in this park is the wildlife viewing drive in the south unit.  The scenery and the animals are beautiful.  There is a rest area/viewing are along I-90 just east of Medora…definitely worth a stop.