Long Travel Day

We are up at dawn to watch the sunrise over the mesa, Monument Valley slowly comes into its colors. We head out in search of adventure and good coffee. As we make the San Juan river bridge and turn into Mexican Hat we spy a café/coffee shop and pull in to recharge with hot chocolate and coffee. I’m trying to think of something nice to say but it was just awful. The Changing Woman from Canyon de Chelly really needs to franchise around the area, there has been no competition for good coffee. Later in Mexican Hat we stop long enough to get a picture of the rock formation which gives the town its name. Along our route we decide to go to Hovenweep which was not in our original plan. It is not too much of a detour and we are glad to explore this ancient site when it is fairly empty. There are square and round towers scattered around this small stream. There are miles of empty mesa and suddenly there is this small crack of a stream and people chose to live here. And they have been here a long time some ruins are from 350 AD. It looks like such an inviting place to live that it is easy to engage with the mystery of why the people ever left here.

From Hovenweep we take a back road to Cortez CO. The ranger said we could go one of two roads one would encounter cows and the other deer. We took the deer route but did not see any. The ranger said at dusk this is a dangerous road because of the deer and he commonly sees 40 to 60 of them on his drive into the park on this route.

In Cortez we find a sandwich place from our GPS system. It looks unpromising from the outside, like an ice cream place that makes a couple grilled chese sandwiches and calls itself a restaurant. Boy were we in for a surprise. The food is local and great. We have sodas that are hand made in the area, and Susan has great New Mexico quality pasole. The pasole is a surprise because it is so good and the cook does not actually like pasole. We weren’t going to have desert until we saw them delivered to another table. We give in and order an apple pie and ice cream for Sybil & Henry and a chocolate dipped strawberry cake for Susan & Frank. We waddle out the door and promise to have a light dinner. Cortez is a charming town but we press on to Durango. Another charming town. We check out the hotel we will be staying at in a couple days and notice interesting shops & restaurants to explore on our return.

Pagosa Springs is another world. Like Cortez and Durango is a one time mining town which now mostly lives off of tourists but is has hot springs which has made it a destination place for some time. The sulfur scented water comes out of the ground at 160 degrees all year round. Our hotel/spa has three pools; warm, warmer and hot. If there were not a sulfur smell this would be heaven. Tomorrow is Sybil’s birthday and a special massage and mud wrap have been arranged for her and for Susan. That would make an interesting picture.