Travel & Transportation

Well, Gus has cast his vote. Without any equivocation.

We’re in the last month of our trip (in Illinois now), so it’s natural that people are asking, “what place did you like best?” How do we answer that? We’ve been to so many great places. Plus, it depends on if you’re talking about which house, which town, which adventure…

But Gus is very clear about it; he would vote for the house in Dolores, CO. Nothing to do with “his” room or the yard. The Dolores house, a small bungalow on a street of small bungalows, was built in 1908. It was very nicely rehabbed not too long ago, but still, it is an old house. And like a lot of old houses, it has ever-so-small chinks that mice can get in. And they did. So Gus felt like he had a purpose in life again.

^{Gus waiting at the fireplace, near where the first mouse sighting occurred.}

We might not have even known we had a mouse (yeah, I know, it’s never a mouse, it’s mice!) if Gus hadn’t started chasing one around the living room. We called the owners, they sent over the pest control guy, he caulked around the fireplace and put out a trap. Fortunately for Gus that wasn’t the end of it; we still would see a mouse every few days.  

Yes, we did think about moving. We looked at what else might be available but decided to stay. With Gus on patrol we felt pretty safe.

Plus, I loved Dolores (despite the mice). What’s not to like about a town where you can walk a trail along the river to get to a library (4 blocks north), to the cutest grocery store (3 blocks south), to the brewery (3 blocks south, one block west), coffee shop (2 blocks north) and 6 blocks north to the Mexican restaurant with its outdoor patio right on the river. Along the river trail a little further south was a ball field where we watched some teenage teams play and then further along was a trail up the cliff that runs along the west side of town. Hearing sirens and whistles going on at length one evening, we stepped outside to see a parade going down the main street. Following one police car and two fire engines were about 30 pickup trucks and jeeps. In the back of each vehicle was one high school senior with balloons, colorful banners and big grins. It was graduation night in Dolores.

^{Another reason to love Dolores: they post signs where you can access the river to fish – instead of any “no fishing” signs.}

Dolores (named for the river, Spanish for sorrows), has a population of just under 1000. When the railroad established a rail line and station in the largely uninhabited area (in 1891), the residents of a nearby settlement, called Big Bend, moved everything to the new town. Many years later Big Bend was completely submerged under the reservoir that formed from the McPhee Dam.

^{At the top of McPhee Recreational area. The start of the Can Do trail (we did!), overlooking the reservoir, with views of the Abajo mountains to the northwest, the La Plata mountains to southeast, Mesa Verde and the Mountain of Sleeping Ute to the southwest.}

^{View along the Can Do trail, overlooking the Dolores River where it flows into the McPhee Reservoir.}

Also submerged when the reservoir was filled were many abandoned native American sites. Fortunately there are many other sites that were preserved. The pueblos in southwestern CO area were thought to have generally been inhabited until about 1300 A.D.  Historians are still not sure why they were abandoned but the people are thought to be the ancestors of the present-day Arizona Hopi and New Mexico Pueblo Indians. There are the national parks, like Mesa Verde, with amazing remnants of large pueblo settlements. But many more exist. We hiked many trails where you’d come across smaller pueblos that had been discovered and left somewhat undisturbed.  

^{Remains of a pueblo at the Hawkins Preserve in Cortez. There was a canopy over it, with excavated pottery shards here and there. An archeologist John and I met at the cultural center has done some studies here. School kids are brought here for an outing. Amazing that anything remains.}

^{A sign at the pueblo-ruins on the Can Do trail. Without the sign we would have walked right by them, assuming the rocks were just random formations – if we had noticed then at all.}

A big part of what made our Dolores stay so wonderful was that we were only 20 minutes away from where my sister Kathy lives. It was Kathy who led us to some of the trails with the pueblos, one at nearby Hawkins Preserve and then one that we came upon on a beautiful hike through Sand Canyon, among wildflowers blooming everywhere. It’d take a book to write all the adventures we had with Kathy. She and I did a natural dyeing class, a mosaics class, we soaked in natural hot springs, tasted wines at a vineyard, groomed her horses, explored a few towns and walked many trails. The three of us had some great meals and wide-ranging discussions.

^{So many wildflowers were in bloom on the trail in Sand Canyon. Had good intentions to look each of the plants up. But just appreciating the beauty is good too.}

^{One of the pueblos on the Sand Canyon trail. There are ruins all over the place in the wilds, some marked, some not. These were quite accessible. A guy on the trail was saying how as a boy they’d climb right up into the ruins, before they were marked with signs to keep out. It was the discovery and study of nearby Mesa Verde (now a National Park) that led to the realization of the importance of these sites.}

We made one other short stop in Colorado, up north near Keenesburg. John got to visit with his college buddies, Joe and Al. And we got a tour of the Wild Animal Sanctuary where Joe volunteers. The sanctuary is dedicated to rescuing endangered large cats (tigers, lions, leopards, jaguars, etc), bears, wolves, foxes, and other large carnivores. It also has a few camels, emus, ostriches, and wild horses. The animals are provided with enriching natural habitats for life. The illicit trade in exotic animals is the third largest illegal profit-making trade worldwide, after drugs and weapons.  

The organization has three locations but only the one we visited is open to the public. In order to minimize the stress on the animals, visitors are restricted to a three-mile-long aerial walkway about 30 feet above the ground. Apparently the animals do not consider anything in the air above them to be encroaching on their territory whereas someone walking outside their fenced area is seen as threatening (or as lunch!). This walkway gave us some great views of the animals, as well as some great views of the surrounding lightning storm! Joe assured us that the geography of the area is such that we were perfectly safe from lightning on this metal bridge up in the sky. Uh-huh! A strong, driving rain did finally cause us to turn around just short of the camels at the end of the walk. But meanwhile we had watched bears playing in the lake, listened to the wolves howling, learned the history of individual big cats, found a western kingbird nest with four eggs, and enjoyed Joe’s knowledge of, and passion for, the sanctuary and its mission.

^{The bears were very active, lots of play in the water. Always better to visit on a cooler, windy day.}

^{A beautiful blond fox, totally impervious to us gawking at her from the walkway above.}

Now that we’re here in Illinois Gus has a pretty nice setup, a big sunroom with lots of windows looking onto the woods and bird feeders. Even a raccoon who comes by nightly to raid the bird food. But he’s still voting for Dolores, Colorado as his favorite place. Maybe John and I will have our favorites narrowed down by the time we leave here, and I write our last blog; we’ll see. But I doubt it!

Some other random photos:

^{Art installation at Hawkins Preserve, about 5 feet tall, 6 feet wide. Appropriate subject given the pueblo ruins at the preserve.}

^{How can such a small town have such a wonderful library? I frequently give thanks for libraries. This is the library’s reading room overlooking the Dolores River.}

^{And then the other libraries we love to find – the Little Free Libraries. This one was in one of the more unlikely, but beautiful, spots, an out of the way pull out overlooking part of Sand Canyon.}

^{The poppy that got away. A “volunteer” in the sidewalk outside our house. The back yard was full of them but most hadn’t bloomed yet by the time we left.}

^{My favorite sign in Cortez. The store it fronted looked just as retro, except for the ads for vapes. Not totally in character.}

^{This guy is fast! It’s a common collared lizard. They can run on just their hind legs supposedly. When he did run he was too fast for us to tell how many legs he was using. Looks like he’s wearing pajamas 🙂}

^{Saw lots of deer every drive to Kathy’s house. Beautiful – as long as you see them in time. They’re rather careless about crossing the road.}

^{Kathy and I didn’t intend to make our dye projects look so identical. Guess we think alike! Such an interesting day learning about the plants and the process for making the dyes and then the various ways to use them.}

^{Kathy’s horse Moon. Of her three horses, he is the one that you could groom all day and he’d still have loose hair left. But he was also the one most patient with a novice groomer.}

^{Dolores at dusk.}