Colorado Mountain High

-->

It’s been really strange not having internet access – but as the waitress last night in Crested Butte said, maybe it’s just been time to “chill.” 

We are currently camped at Colorado Dream Ranch up in Taylor Park. We arrived here on the 25^th after spending 5 days in Ridgway, 5 days on the upper Dolores River above Rico, and 2 days at Priest Gulch on the lower Dolores.   We had originally planned to have 4 days at Priest Gulch, but I’ve been battling some digestive system issues and needed to wait until I got some lab results before we left. (To make the story short, I’ve pretty much determined that it has to do with blood sugar, but I won’t be sure for a while. I’ve started keeping a very detailed food journal using the “Lose It” app, and I think I’ll figure things out after a few more weeks.)

While we were at Cayton Campground on the upper Dolores, these were some of our views.

-->

We went to Telluride for one day while we were at Cayton, but other than that we stuck around camp. I set up the sewing machine and did some piecing, while Don went fishing.  Our day in Telluride was fun – they have a free solar-powered gondola system that runs all summer. We parked at the uppermost terminal in Mountain Village, and rode it up and over the mountain and then down into downtown Telluride. We walked up and down the streets for a while, looking but not spending (wait, I did get a big straw hat) and then enjoyed lunch at Smuggler’s, a brew pub that had a great wedge salad. Don enjoyed a crispy chicken sandwich and the best-looking French fries I’ve seen for a while. I had three so I can attest to how good they were.

After Cayton, we drove up and over the Dallas Divide and down into Ridgway, where we set up at our favorite site in Ridgway State Park. These two pictures were taken at the top of the Dallas Divide, looking south towards the Sneffels Range.

-->

At Ridgway, we were about 50 yards from the Uncompahgre River, and Don spent many hours on it every day.  We did spend one evening in Ouray – finding yet another brew pub. I wasn’t feeling too great, so we walked the streets for just a short while and then went back to Ridgway.  I’d say that the highlight of my stay at Ridgway was going to the Farmers’ Market, where I picked out some great produce from about 8 different stands.

On the 25^th, we left Ridgway and after a short stop in Gunnison for some groceries, drove up the Taylor River to where we are right now.  After several stays at the Forest Service campground nearby, we’ve decided to start staying here at the Colorado Dream Ranch – where we have full hookups. The next three pictures are our views from site 53. We stayed there for 4 days, and have now moved over to site 19.

This is our view from Site #19.  The peaks in the distance, and in the photo above, are part of the Collegiate Peaks -- several 14'ers.

 
-->

Today we drove up to Spring Creek Reservoir, where there’s some great trout fishing.  Isn’t that a pretty little lake?  Don spent about 4 hours in his float tube, and caught dozens of rainbows all afternoon.

Today we're in Gunnison, because we needed to pay some bills using the WiFi at the Bean Coffee Shop, and because I wanted to go to the Farmer's Market.