Nice shot in site. It’s nice to camp with Linda Pratt because you get all these awesome shots for free.
While we have been grateful for the ability to travel in a nearly post pandemic country, there remain lots of things that are still closed. This includes most of the tours through native lands and national parks. I know there is much more to see in Mesa Verde than what we witnessed from a distance, but it was still quite impressive.
On our way out of Colorado, backtracking through Durango, we stopped at a hardware store because we realized we now have the wrong size lug nut socket fitting and we need to check the lug nuts after about a hundred miles. This coincided nicely with enough cell service to upload pictures and do some blog posting. We are now in the land of low cell service, so blog posts will be done well after the fact. The only way I’ve found to manage this is to keep photos in albums and write posts in a note that I can copy later.
Fun to see your buddy out your window.
It wasn’t a long drive to Mesa Verde, so we arrived in the early afternoon. The Morefield Campground is located inside the park and, though the sites are reservable, they are not assigned. We arrived before Linda and held a site for her next to us. It’s a huge campground, with close to 400 sites, but doesn’t feel it. Some down lower are close together, but ours were nicely spaced.
What an incredible place this is. Worthy of a return trip when there are tours.
Once situated, Richard headed out on a bike ride along the national park road, up to the Sun Temple. Linda and I headed up later and found him just before the meetup point. He was plenty tired after 21 miles into the wind, so he put his bike in the back and we drove the loop again together so I could see all of the pull outs and displays. This is a fascinating park, with an amazing natural and anthropological history. I’ll bet the tours into the dwellings must be amazing.
Million dollar view.
We stopped at one final lookout, at Park Point, before returning to Dory. Richard got in a sunset hike along the Knife’s Point Trail. I was not aware he was going to do the whole trail and was bummed to have missed it, but now we know what we need to work on in terms of communication. That is all part and parcel of these long trips together and it’s all good. We now have a procedure whereby he needs to tell me his ETR, or Estimated Time of Return, for his “I’m just going to check this out” excursions. I can then decide whether or not it’s something I want to join in on. And he will know that if something is going to take two or three hours, rather than twenty minutes, he should check in or come back. Traveling together in a <100 sq ft trailer automatically means you get to also work on your marriage. Yipee!
Total miles: 113.9, 16.0 mpg. Site 312. Great solar. No hookups. Not great cell for either of us. There are places on the national park road, like Park Point, where you get good LTE. Otherwise inconsistent. Two dumps with rinse water. Both good dumps. Store, gas, laundry at the Morefield check in office location.
