August 9, 2016 A Day Exploring

We had a really nice morning. It was just cool enough to use our propane fire pit. Glad we have it because you cant have regular fires here. We watched the hummingbirds who made us laugh. There is one who sits and watches from a tree limb and when others come to the feeder he runs them off. This went on for at least an hour. We then drove to the other side of the lake and looked at the campground over there, The Rio Grande River feeds Cochiti Lake and that is where it comes in.We left there and went into Santa Fe and just looked around. Its a nice town but not much there for me. They have lots of art gallery's and jewelry places. We ate some lunch and then headed home. We had another nice evening outside.

Our Bully Hummingbird

Rio Grande coming into lake

That's our campground across the lake

Another Coyote

Lots of hummingbirds feeding this evening

August 8 2016 Tented Rocks National Monument

We had a power outage last night after I had written my blog. The temperature was nice so it wasn't bad at all. We sat outside till almost 9. I started the generator so we could watch TV and keep our battery charged, . The park ranger said power was out all over the valley. It finally came back on before we went to bed,  It was a lot warmer when we got up Monday morning about 63. Its the first time in a long time I didn't have to put the furnace on to warm up the trailer. It was nice sitting outside except the wind was blowing which made it feel cooler. After breakfast we decided to do some exploring. The little town of Cochiti appears to be mostly retired folks. All the houses are adobe style homes.  There is just one convinenece store here with gas pumps and a laundromat. The only resterant is at the golf course. Santa Fe is the closest town to go to. We found a place called Tented Rocks Monument. We drove up to the overlook and looked around. The rock formations are interesting. Their are two different hikes to take and we may do them later in the week. We headed home and spent the rest of the day there. Susan did a little sewing. I hung some hummingbird feeders and it didn't take long for them to find it. We had another nice evening. It looked like we were going to get rain but it just missed us.

August 6,7 2016 We moved to Cochiti Lake, New Mexico

Saturday was our last day on the West Dolores river. It had rained some during the night but had quit by morning. It stayed overcast most of the day.We went in to Dolores because we thought there was a craft show in the park. It turned out to be a dog "agility show". We left there and went to the general store and had ice cream. After that we headed back home. It actually cleared up and we had the nicest evening for the week.
Sunday morning was cold about 48when I got up. We finished getting ready and was on the road by 8:00 am.  We stopped in a little town called Bloomfield and ate breakfast. We had a nice easy drive. We arrived at Cochiti Lake around 2:00 pm. We got set up. We have both electricity and water hook ups here This a COE Campground and is very well maintained. The camp host said there has been several bear sightings so we have to keep our camp bear proof.  The temperature is warmer than we have been used to. With the humidity so low 86 still feels nice as long as you are in the shade .It looks like we are 35 miles from Santa Fe and about 49 mikes from Albuquerque.

August 3,4,5 A Slow Day, Rainy Days & Laundry Day

 

Nothing exciting to report this morning, just our same old routine. We ran into Cortez to go to Walmart. Susan found a couple of quilt shops to go to. I went and talked to a place about putting new u-joints in my truck. I started noticing one was going bad in Steamboat Springs. It didn’t heal itself so I figured I better replace them and not get caught on the road somewhere. I have 320,00 miles on them so I am replacing them all.  We tried to sit outside but the winds and rain started. It lasted most of the evening.  

It was still misting Thursday morning when I got up. Maggie and I couldn’t walk. Susan did some sewing and I went to Cortez for my truck repairs. It took about 3 hrs to get it all done. Ole  Blue sure does drive smoother now and no clanking. It continued to rain and mist when I got home so we didn’t even try to sit outside.

I slept late Friday morning almost till 7. We got up and piddled around . We headed to Cortez to do laundry. We stopped in Dolores and had breakfast at “The Ponderosa”.  They have a great green chili burrito. We then headed on to Cortez and did our laundry. We also stopped by Walmart and picked up a few things . We got back to the trailer between rain showers. Finally  later in the evening the rain stopped. We sat by the fire till until supper time.

Rainy Days by the River

 A Great Breakfast

UGH,  Backseat full of dirty clothes

A happy face doing laundry 

August 2, 2016 Mesa Verde

 

Another nice morning here on the West Dolores River. Maggie and I took an early walk looking for a bear but we didn’t see one.  Supposedly one was seen yesterday. I have been looking for a bear all summer with no luck. We decided to go to Mesa Verde today. Its been 20 years since we have been there. There have been lots of changes since then. You now have to get tickets for all the cliff dwellings. We got there about 10:00 am and most all the tours were sold out for the day. You can buy tickets two days in advance. We chose to just drive on up and look around and not worry about the tours. If we want we can come back another day since we are not far away. It is really a great drive to the top. It’s a 20 mile climb with several places to stop and look at the views. We looked at the Tree House and The Cliff Palace. We also checked out the museum. There had been a couple of fires since we had visited before. The last one was 2002 I think. The grass and small bushes hav grown back but the trees are slow coming back. We headed back home and chilled the rest of the evening. We had a few evening showers but overall it was very nice.

Mesa Verde

Tree House

Cliff Palace

Wiley Coyote

Fire from 2002

Maggie loves peanut butter

Chilling

August 1 2016 A Nice Day

August 1, 2016

It was a really nice morning. Maggie and I took a short walk along the river. Susan got up early around 6:30 so I started our fire pit and we sat outside watching hummingbirds and listening to the river run. Later I cooked breakfast and we ate outside. The temperature stayed around 60 till 11:00. We cleaned up and ran into Dolores so we could use the internet and phones. We drove to McPhee Reservoir and looked around.  We didn’t think much of the campgrounds there. The lake is very pretty but they don’t have any day use areas.  We headed back to camp and chilled out. That evening the camp host came by and said there was a bear sighting earlier. Maggie and  will go on bear patrol tomorrow. I cooked chili for supper and we had a nice evening.

Oh No its closed

McPhee Reservoir

Enjoying the fire

July 31, 2016 A Scenic Drive to Mavreeso Campground

 

I didn’t sleep well last night. I got on up at 6 and found that I had caught another mouse. We think this is the last one. We got in the road about 8. We stopped in Montrose and topped off the truck and ate breakfast at The Shanty. They have a really good green chili breakfast buritto. It was another beautiful drive to our campground. We caught a little rain on the last mountain pass. We got to the campground and was setup by 1. Our neighbor is from Corpus Christi and we chatted briefly. We are on the West Dolores river. It’s a really pretty little place. Later in the evening we got another rain shower. We just sat under the awning and watched it rain. After the shower we met another guy from Big Spring Texas. He has been coming to this part of Colorado for years. Finally we went in for the night. I was able to get satilitte tv but we have no service in our cell phones. We will have to go into Dolores to use phone and internet. 

The Shanty--My favorite breakfast place in Montrose

West Dolores River

View from my bay window