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Home again, home again.

 It's always good to be home. We have never taken such a road trip before, and certainly never with a dog. That was an experience. She loved the long hikes in the mountains, didn't care for the car rides, especially the long one.  We, too, experienced new things. We listened to a lot of books on tape (well, Audible), trying to match the words to the Landscape. So we started with True Grit by Charles Portis, set mostly in the Oklahoma Territory. One of my favorite books of all times, and it was read by Donna Tart. ( The Goldfinch , etc). Perfect book for the start of the trip, from Houston to Bartlesville. On the next two legs of the trip, to Hutchinson, Kansas and then up to Keystone, South Dakota, we listed to My Antonia by Will Cather. (pronounced, we learned, as an-tone-EEE-ah). A wonderful book for driving through Nebraska. And we were on the Willa Cather highway while doing so. As we drove into Wyoming, we listened to Rising from the Plains , by John McPhee. The story of
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Driving Home New Mexico to Amarillo, Amarillo to Waco.

Leaving Colorado was hard. We had another long drive in front of us, and I was a little worried about driving through New Mexico. I had heard that they were stopping cars at the state line to enforce COVID quarantine.  That was not the case:  That is one beautiful state. This is near the Ghost Ranch, around Abiqui.  The colors are dumbfounding Everywhere you look it is beautiful. New Mexico was the second state that have a "You are leaving" sign. The other was Kansas Home again. We did go to the Big Texan It is a whole "western cowtown" Complete with EMS on site for heart attacks. We stayed in this cute little house in the Wolflin neighborhood in Amarillo. It was quite nice Then we drove the next day to Waco, where we stayed in this very wonderful farmhouse. They had sheep Then we drove home, One more post coming with final thoughts.
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Colorado. The Canyon of the Ancients

 We've done forest, we've done grassland, we've done mountains, so now we needed to do desert. Welcome to the Canyon of  the Ancients. But before we got stated, we walked down to the Dolores River. It was very nice. There is another photo further on down the post showing Doreen all bundled up. It was cold. The desert was quiet. There were some mostly unreconstructed, and unmonitored ruins on the hike. Really interesting And beautiful Not as spectacular as over on Mesa Verde, but everyone has to live somewhere The sky was really blue And the rocks went from gray to red to white Many had these intrusions We never get tired of Self Portraits.  Doreen in the morning
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Mesa Verde. You need to see this place

As per usual, we took the dog out for a morning stroll before we got going. That is The Stoller on the Stroll. It was very cold (for us, anyway) about 30 degrees F! Yikes! And this was September! How do these people live up here?  But it got warmer in the park. Like most (all?) National Parks, dogs cannot go onto trails, and cannot be off leash (we never let Lulu off leash), which does restrict you a little. Many of the trails were closed,  though, due to COVID, and you could not enter any of the cliff dwellings, so that wasn't that big a deal. The place is just amazing. You can see why The Ancestral People wanted to live there.  I am so afraid of heights, that it gave me the heeby jeebies just looking at these places. To tell you the truth, I was glad the dwellings were closed, because I would have forced myself to go into them. And I would have been very scared. I don't know how much of this has been reconstructed since the discovery (well, bad word. Re-discovery? Exposure?)
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SW Colorado is different than Denver

Telluride is an old mining town that has grown into a rich person's haven. Here is the main street: and here is an image from the Telluride website talking about how to get here: yea, that makes sense. It is very pretty, though.   And this hike was wonderful. Views of the town The aspens The mountains The trail head Another hike with tremendous relief. Not something we are used to in Houston, but a great thing to have on a vacation.
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Our drive to Colorado from Wyoming was long, but uneventful. The entrance to Colorado was not remarkable, but the terrain and vegetation changed shortly after arriving in the Centennial State. We drove on the western side of the state, right through Rifle and Parachute, two oil shale mining towns where I worked back in the early 1980s When we arrived at our cabin, the aspens were all golden. It was quite spectactular.   The next day we hiked the Bear Creek Trail. There was a lot of vertical relief in Colorado. The place we stayed at was over 8,000', and we hiked up to over 10,000' But we had fun And the trees were fantastic We slept well.
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