We just got back from our annual fall trip to the Ouray, Colorado area. For the past five years we've gone jeeping, or off roading in the San Juan Mountains of south west Colorado. That area of the state has some great jeep and atv trails and the fall color was just about perfect this year. Plenty of professional photographers travel to the area to photograph the fall foliage and the mountains.
We hauled our Jeep again this year, stopping the first night in Red River. Red River has become one of our favorites places. Situated in the high altitude of northern New Mexico, it is literally a cool place to start and end a trip. It was 35 degrees in the morning and it felt great compared to Texas. On a side note, while we were coming across from Clayton over to Springer, we ran into a hail storm!! You couldn't see 10 feet in front of you and we were just lucky that the hail was small and pretty soft. Otherwise, we would have had major damage.
Instead of going over to Durango and up the Million Dollar Highway this year, we opted to go the northern route, taking us through Alamosa, Monte Vista, Gunnison, Montrose and then to Ouray. There is a lot of really good farms around Alamosa and they were baling alfalfa and digging potatoes.
Once in Ouray, we met up with our friends Jerry and Terry as well as Guy and Carolyn and planned out our jeeping adventures. The first day brought us rain so we took Engineer Pass up to Poughkeepsie Gulch since we knew the terrain was all rock and shelf roads. The following day was beautiful so we took Engineer over to Lake City, where we enjoyed a stop at the San Juan Soda Fountain! We took Cinnamon Pass back to Animas Forks, then down to Silverton for a late dinner. Driving the road from Silverton to Ouray is probably better in the dark because you can't see the drop-offs!!
The last day we went up to the top of Governor's Basin. It was pretty hairy! Not one of Beverly's favorite trips. It is amazing to see all of the huge, and we do mean HUGE boulders at the top of the basin, and you know that they rolled DOWN from the top and here we are looking up at the ones that are yet to fall. It makes you think!
On our way home we met up with Jeremy and Annie in Salida where we had dinner and visited for about two hours. Earlier in the day Jeremy ran a half-marathon in Aspen. He had been training for it for several months. He shortened his time by 13 minutes in a course that had over 2,000 feet in altitude gain over the 13+ mile distance. Annie looks great and now only lacks about 4 weeks until her due date!! So, Colorado, here we come again. Taylor requested a "bobble"head (hard to find!) and Presley is into purses. Luckily, we found both in Red River.
