Hello Colorado

Durango, CO

After a wonderful stay of almost three months in Utah (OK, we spent a week in Page, AZ, but you could see Utah out our front window), we have now migrated into the green state of  Colorado.  We’ll be spending a week here in Durango, in the southwest corner of the state, before heading to the northeast next week for a visit to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.

The view driving through southwest Colorado

After a drive of about a hundred and twenty-five miles, we quickly settled into our spot at Alpen Rose RV Park, a few miles north of Durango.  Overall it is a nice park, with friendly people in the office.  In fact, one of the workers in a golf cart met us as we drove in and, since we had a reservation, escorted us to our site before we even went into the office.  But our one complaint is, for us, a deal breaker.  Each site in this park shares utilities with the site next to it.  This means two things we don’t like in a site.  First, you are very close to the neighbor on your left.  Second, you share the space outside your door on your right with the person in the next space.  If we had known that, we would have looked more closely at other parks in the area.

But the good thing about our site is the view out the front.  We are looking at grazing horses right in front of us and snow covered mountains in the distance.

The view out our front windshield

We spent the first day here cleaning some of the Utah dust from our vehicles.  John washed both the Jeep and the motorhome from top to bottom, while Pam cleaned the inside of the motorhome.  This town does have a nice Starbucks, so we did have a reward at the end of the day!

The next day we headed into Durango to experience a great bike/walking path.  The Animus River Trail (paved) runs right through the town, crossing back and forth across the Animus River for seven miles.

Just south of town the path runs along a set of rapids in the river that are set up to host white water competitions.  We came upon a group of people dressed like mountain hikers who where jumping in the river and swimming from large rock to large rock.

One of the participants walked by us, so we inquired as to what they were doing.  We found that they are enrolled in a program at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska that leads to a degree in disaster rescue.  Who knew there even was such a degree?  They were in Durango to complete skills necessary for river rescues.

While on the bike path, we passed a neat little barbecue restaurant with outdoor seating.  So after returning to the Jeep, we headed south to split a sandwich while enjoying a nice view of the river.

We also stopped at the visitors center and found that there are a number of good hikes in the area, so look for those in a future blog.  The only problem is that, unlike Utah, they cover the rocks around here with dirt and some sort of green stuff, so don’t look for many pictures of rocks in the future!