Day Six - The Southwest

No exercise again. I'm gonna have to work hard to get back in a rhythm when I get home.

So this morning, Cole woke up first in our rustic little motel in South Fork, and wanted to do something to get on the road, so I suggested he shower.

That's when we discovered how rustic the motel was. A steady temperature for the shower was a luxury. He suffered through it first, and when Cory argued that he didn't wanna get out of bed yet, I happily went next so I'd at least get SOME hot water in case it ran out. Cory could have the cold one, if that's what he wanted!

Anyway, after we all got cleaned up, we drove into town a bit more and found a coffee shop that served breakfast, and we ate. And I also used their wireless and uploaded the 113 pictures I'd taken so far. Unfortunately that took some time and the boys got bored, so I let them go out behind the coffee shop and play for a bit. They found a couple dogs to play with and so it occupied their time just fine.

We finally got on the road at about 11:15 or so, but only had about an hour and a half to drive to get to our next stop, Durango.

We spent a low-key couple hours in Durango, mostly downtown eating a late lunch at Francesco's and then walking around the shops, stopping where we pleased. We hit a couple cool novelty shops, and then ended the adventure with a shop in a candy store, where I got an icecream cone and some freakin' good peanut butter candy they make, and the boys custom-filled 18" tubes with sour powder stuff, like giant pixie sticks.

We then filled the car, and hit the road for Mesa Verde. The entrance to the park was only about 45 miles away, but then we had another 20 mile trek up the mountain to the visitor center. When we paid our entrance fee, the ranger told us that we would probably not get up there by 4:30, which is when they sell the last tour tickets for the day. That put a mission in my head.

So, we bolted up the side of the mountain, and got to the visitor center by 4:25. YAY! We got tickets to the more adventurous of the tours, Balcony House. You have to climb up a 32 foot wooden ladder and then squeeze your way through tunnels and stuff to get back out of the dwellings.

It was a pretty awesome tour, and the ranger was great. Although, there was a kid about 13 or so on the tour that was just completely oblivious to social convention and kept farting loudly and saying "excuse me." I think he was an aspby.

Anyway, after the tour, we had another half hour before some of the other self guided tour dwellings closed, so we rushed to one of them on account of daddy (the boys didn't wanna see anymore) so I could get my money's worth.

We didn't have a place lined up to stay, and there's a lodge at the top of the mesa so we checked that out, but it didn't have a pool (which Cory really wanted) and the restaurants and stuff were too fancy for our tastes, so we headed back down the mountain, destination unknown.

However, we did decide that rather than sticking around this part of CO to see the Four Corners monument, that it was time to start back home, so we headed east once down the mountain, past Durango, back to South Fork before daddy got too tired to drive anymore. About 10:30 or so.

This time, we picked a nicer hotel for a few bucks more, but we get steady hot water, a pool, and a continental breakfast in the morning.

Now THAT's livin'!