Category: September October 2024

Wednesday morning we had a leisurely breakfast before heading back down the road to the Fairgrounds in Durango where our site was empty and we could set up. We were basically in a parking lot beside their maintenance area – no shade and lots of trucks in and out all day and evening.

After a bite of lunch, we headed into the town for some shopping. Paul got the propane tank refilled while I headed to the grocery store – this time a Walmart where I could pick up a few household items on our list.

Thursday morning Paul headed out before 6:30 to get in line at the Ford express oil service for an oil change for the truck.

I got breakfast ready and packed a lunch so we could head out for another scenic drive when he returned. Unfortunately he wasn’t first in line so it was about 9 am before he returned.

This time we headed south of Durango on a back road for part of a drive called “Tracks across Borders”. Our main destination was the Chimney Rock National Monument we had passed earlier in the week.

At certain times of the year, the moon rises between the two rocks. It was felt this may have held some significance to these peoples.

Some excavating has discovered parts of the stone structures built by this group. The ancient Puebloans were creative capturing rain water when it came, but likely had to make daily trips down 1000’ in elevation and travelling 2 miles round trip in order to keep their supply of water. This group only lived about 50 years in this location before moving on to other regions of the four corners. There were a couple of trails where we could see these remnants. Paul did the longer one while I made it around the shorter one.

Tomorrow, Friday, we head out and go north up the Million Dollar Highway to our next stop.

Tuesday morning we left our beautiful campsite at Pallisade and finished the last few miles of the Silver Thread Highway and then headed west across Hwy 160.

We had more clouds on the way and had a couple more mountain passes to go through, but not as high or steep as some of our earlier ones.

Along Hwy 160 we passed this unique rock formation. We may take a side trip later to check it out!

Arriving in Durango, we headed to what was to be our campground for the next couple of nights. It was at the fairgrounds so I went into the office to check in. This is where the ‘oops’ came in. My reservation wasn’t to start until the next night! I hadn’t checked our schedule and I was a day ahead! The 6 sites there were all full for the night. I was really upset with myself since we had left such a beautiful campground.

Checking a few area campsites didn’t make me any happier – $80 – 100 a night, even if only for one night, wasn’t encouraging. We decided to take a gamble and drove about 8 km out of town, partly on gravel, to a National Forest Campground. The reservation system showed all sites reserved but I hoped there might be a couple of ‘first come, first served’ sites still left since it was early afternoon. We got lucky and the campground host showed us to a non-electric site that we could fit into and we had a great evening!