We left our hearts in Colorado

On our way to CO, we stayed in Page, AZ. We'd been there before; it is a beautiful area. I include this photo only to highlight the drought and the drop in the water table there. Hopefully it has been refilled this winter by the large amounts of snow and rain that hit northern AZ. One thing left to see there is Antelope Canyon. I did not think my knees would be able to take all the climbing and didn't want to slow down other tourists. 

From Page we headed to Westview RV Resort in Dolores, CO. This would be our home base while we explored CO and the surrounding areas. First up on the list was Mesa Verde National Park. 

Next up was a trip to Monument Valley. Yes, technically this is Utah, but we left from CO so it's in this post. This was a very interesting place to go. This next picture is the highway made famous by Tom Hanks running on it as Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name. Lots of people stop to take pictures and there are signs warning people to be careful as there have been many accidents there. 

We elected to take a tour of the valley. Our guide was a Navajo Indian who had local ties to the area. He let us know of Navajo customs, as well as modern day things. On the tour you go by the "monuments". This is one of the "mitten" buttes. 

This butte is called the "Three Sisters".

On the tour we were able to see a Hogan Village. There are two types of homes (male & female) that are distinct by their shapes.  The female home is round shaped, larger so it can accomodate more people. These homes are  still used today by the elderly and for ceremonial purposes. Hogans are made of natural materials-cedar, bark, sand & water. A fire keeps them warm in winter, in summer they are 25%  cooler than the outside. 

Monument Valley is a popular place for movies to be filmed. Nearly fifty movies have used Monument Valley as a back drop for scenes. This next photo shows the place where Indiana Jones dropped through the hole to the floor below. 

Here's another butte. All in all, we really enjoyed our day in Monument Valley. 

One of the most beautiful and scenic drives (and famous!) drives in CO is the San Juan Parkway. We decided that we would take a weekend to do it and treat ourselves to an overnight stay in Telluride. This drive contains the Million Dollar Highway that goes from Durango to Silverton. There are two theories for the name - 1) it's the cost of the road to build it, and 2) it stands for the number of million dollar homes that are along the road. Regardless, the views are spectacular. 

One of the towns along the way is Ouray. We stopped here to soak in the hot springs.

Telluride is a ski town, obviously we were not there to do that. We enjoyed our hotel and again, got some great views as we were driving. I must confess, I will never get tired of seeing snow capped mountains!

San Juan Parkway, we feel, is a must if you are in CO. There is also a train ride from Durango to Silverton that is very popular, we didn't have time on this trip to fit it in. When we got to CO, we stopped in at a information center, and picked up several brochures. Looking through them, I found an article on the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, and told Andy we need to go there. Little did we know that it would come to be one of our favorite national parks!

This park is unique because you can drive all the way to the bottom of the canyon and look up (not for the faint of heart-it's a 17% downgrade on the road down), and then go back up to view the canyon from the lookouts on the top of the canyon. The Gunnison River runs through the canyon. Needless to say, the pictures won't do it justice. Andy said he thought this was more spectacular than the Grand Canyon. Due to my knee issues (you can see my brace in the pictures) I was not able to see as much as I would have liked, so this park is on the list for us to go back to. 

We were awed by the beauty of Colorado and plan on going back in 2023. From CO we headed to MN for our annual medical check-ups and the first of two knee replacements. We were in Rochester for most of the summer before we headed to Red Bay, AL for our annual maintenance, and then to Apache Junction, AZ (stopping in Austin, TX for niece Olivia's wedding on the way) for the winter. This time we will stay put for 4 months from Nov. to March. Knee #2 was supposed to be done in September, but my body said it wasn't ready so we postponed to having it done in AZ in December. At least I will have a warm climate (no snow & ice to deal with) for recuperating. So that brings us to the end of 2022. Traveling will begin again in March of 2023.