Some Southwest Sights – and Snow!

Slight change of direction.  The Lee's Ferry campsite on the Colorado River - our planned destination after  our stay at the Grand Canyon - didn't turn out to be what we expected (small open campsite with no ground fires allowed).  So, we ended up at a(n overpriced) site near the Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell.  The scenery was beautiful, and the campsite was popular with Europeans (tons of Germans and French).  We were also able to do our shopping in the nearby town.  Unfortunately, we were unable to grill the steaks we bought to celebrate our anniversary because it was too windy.  Instead, we walked over to the “lodge” and enjoyed the view, a local beer (in a real glass) and a decent meal at the bar.

Campsite at Lake Powell

From there, we headed east to Navajo Lake in New Mexico, where we spent a few days so Matthias could treat the rust that was forming under the trailer (exciting!)  The lake and campsite were quite nice, and not too far from Durango, Colorado – somewhere I always wanted to visit.  We did so on a wet rain/sleet/snowy day, but it was still quite charming.  Our next stop was near Dolores, Colorado, where we found a nice camping spot at McPhee Reservoir in the San Juan National Forest.  Stayed there a few days to visit Mesa Verde National Park and took a drive to Telluride – another place I always wanted to visit. And, we had a nice place to eat the steaks we bought (and froze) the week before.   We really liked this southwest corner of Colorado.

Lake Navajo, NM

Mesa Verde National Park

Picnic spot in Telluride

McPhee Campsite

Steak dinner!

The next stop was Moab, Utah.  The landscape was again spectacular at Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.  We did a few short trails to see the highlights during our visit, but we were itching to get back to the forest in Colorado – had enough of the desert for a while.

Canyonlands National Park

Arches National Park

Leaving Moab, we drove through the La Sal mountain range back toward Colorado.  The scenery was wonderful, even before we hit the famous “million dollar byway” near Silverton.  This is one thing we really love about the trip – the unexpected treats that make the journey (sometimes) as fun as the destination.  Once we did reach the famously scenic portion, it was great, too.  The ground over the passes was covered with snow – and it was still snowing.  I was a little concerned when I saw on the GPS that our campsite was only 12 miles away and there were still quite a few inches of snow on the ground.  But once we descended to our site at Haviland Lake, the ground was clear – though it did snow a bit overnight, which made for a pretty morning.  We were once again near Durango, so we went into town to do our weekly laundry/shopping.  The campground was really nice (though expensive at $20 w/o electricity) and there was tons of firewood laying around as the forest service had recently cleared out some dead trees.  This, of course, made Matthias really happy so we stayed an extra couple of days.

Morning Snow

Scenic Drive

Finally (sort of), we spent a few days around Santa Fe, another New Mexico highlight.  Santa Fe was nice – as nice a place as any for an oil change, I suppose – and we enjoyed walking through town and the surrounding area.  Our campsite was only 8 miles from the city but seemed like a different world – tall pines and water!  We took a drive to Taos and I got to try New Mexican green chile (good, but not better than Denver's).  

Santa Fe

High over Santa Fe

Hiking near Santa Fe

After that it was time to start heading back to Florida.  I planned a route that we pretty much followed – to one last state park in New Mexico (near the Texas border), a stop near Amarillo, Texas and a town park/campsite in Holdenville, OK.  I had thought we'd spend two nights at each site to break up the trip, but there wasn't much to do, so we spent one night at each and pushed on to the Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas, where we spent four nights at the Shady Lake campground.  Very pretty there, but we knew we were back in the East as it looked just like Bear Mountain (where I grew up).  We took a drive to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and gathered all the wood we would need for the rest of the trip.  Our next stop was in Mississippi at a nice campsite in the Tombigbee National Forest.  We would have stayed longer, but we wanted to make sure we got a spot at Open Pond in Alabama before the Memorial Day holiday weekend, so we could wait out the traffic for the final push to Sarasota.  (We're on the road as I'm writing this and so far so good - hope I didn't just jinx myself.) We stayed three nights at Open Pond, the campsite we visited on our way out west, but this time it was quite a bit hotter!  We survived, however, with our electric hookup (A/C!) and a drive to Ft. Walton Beach in Florida where there was a nice breeze.

Shady Lake campsite, Arkansas

At Fort Walton Beach, FL

Now I'm finishing up the blog post during our penultimate day in Florida.  We had a lot to do storing the trailer for the (hot!) summer and getting ready to push further east.  But we had a great visit with mom and Maju, and a wonderful time celebrating Uncle Lou's birthday with Lou, Laurene and Andrew. Next stop: Germany!!

Happy Birthday, Lou!!