On Our Way South

We have headed south into New Mexico. On the way we drove over two mountain passes, Monarch and Raton. After having our truck repaired at the Chevy dealer in Gunnison, we drove over 11,312 ft Monarch pass. We are grateful for our diesel truck which handles the grade just fine. Here is the summit of the pass.

The scenery is wonderful.

Last year we when we left Colorado we drove the Million Dollar Highway from Ouray to Durango. We were nearly 2 weeks earlier this year an on a different pass and this is about the only fall color we saw.

Compare that to what we saw last year.

Near the top of Monarch we saw some mining activity. Some internet searching showing they are mining for gray limestone, used as flux in the iron ore smelting in Pueblo at what used to be called CF&I.

We spent some time in Canon City after our drive over Monarch, visiting John's sister who is in a nursing home there. Then we drove to Raton, New Mexico, where we are spending a few days at the NRA Whittington Center campground. Our trip took us over Raton Pass, only 7834 ft high. On this pass we saw some interesting warning signs:

Across the country we've seen a lot of crossing warnings about deer, tractors and horses and even Amish horse and buggies. But bear and elk crossing signs are unusual.

Smoke as We Travel East

After two weeks at Ridgway State Park, we headed east. First stop was in Gunnison to have some work done on our truck at the Chevy dealer. The trip took us past Blue Mesa Reservoir which stretches 20 miles along US Hwy 50. It is usually a beautiful drive but there is so much smoke from the forest fires in Oregon and Montana we could hardly see the water at times.

There was also road construction along the route, of course. It is summer, isn't it? Look at the long line of vehicles ahead of us.

There were some pretty rock formations along the road, as well.

At the KOA in Gunnison we saw some cute decorations and chain-saw carvings.

I love poppies like this.

And then there was the pet donkey. He and John quickly made friends.