June 2016 - Mesa Verde and Bryce Canyon - Heading home

Dallas Trip June 2016

Left for Dallas on Monday at 6am. Kids did great on the long first day drive. We made it to Amarillo the first night. It was about 13 hours of driving and careful distribution of Dr. Pepper. We were in a hotel with an elevator that I thought was going to break on us. Luckily after it bounced up and down and didn’t go anywhere the door opened when we pushed the open button. We all ran out of there and told the front desk guy. Taking the stairs from now on. Stayed over and then headed into Dallas Tuesday morning. Around six more hours of driving. Pulled into town and got to work Tuesday afternoon. Laura had some gardening to work on and a bit of general house maintenance. We got to it and pulled the place together in time for Jason and Amber’s Open House on Saturday. Byron and Carter flew into town on Thursday. They enjoyed a few days fishing at Strawberry Reservoir for Carter’s High Adventure camp. Carter caught the first fish for the $5 award and also the largest fish during the trip. Nice fishing! Ally and Tyler swam in the green pool but we were all happy to see the pool guy arrive and magically save the day. Tuesday night the pool was green, Wednesday morning it was crystal blue again. Sorcery I tell you. 

The Open House was gorgeous. We had a thunderstorm, mostly thunder, not so much rain roll through in the early afternoon then it cleared off for the evening. We also had a roofing crew roll in next door when the thunder cleared out. They worked hard but weren’t a distraction to our event. We were all a little worried when we saw them pull in. We managed to get the food all cooked and served and everyone mingled and had a great time. They had a really good turnout, far more than we had planned on. We had to rewash the glass plates to have enough for people to eat on. I had purchased 90 napkins thinking 75 would show but we ran clear out of them.

I was working on a few dishes when my stomach started to grumble and I ran for the toilet a few times thinking I was going to puke. I made it through the evening but headed to bed a bit early, 11pm as I was not feeling great. I laid in bed nauseous until 4am and finished what had been grumbling around all evening. It was a might evacuation of my insides. Ally was up at 4:30; she also lost her lunch. She threw up eleven times in the next 14 hours. Poor girl. Then Laura started feeling ill, Chris was feeling ill, Phil was down for the count and Tyler lost his lunch Sunday morning. Seriously….food poisoning. Luckily it was the eggs we had eaten from aunt Cindy’s farm fresh chickens and not the stuffed mushrooms we had served the entire ward and all of Amber’s Dallas contingency. So we were the only ones to get sick and within twelve hours we were all feeling better. No more farm fresh eggs for us.

A group went into downtown Dallas for a tour of the Grassy Knoll and a bit of JFK Conspiracy Theory talk and to walk through the aquarium. Ally came home talking about the little monkeys who were hiding from the birds in their little monkey houses with a sliding door they liked to peek in and out of. She also brought Tyler and I souvenirs since we stayed behind as Tyler had recently lost his lunch and I stayed with him. I snuck over to Chow Thai for some lunch on my way back from Barnes and Noble, picking up Ty’s book. Huge food discovery. The Green Curry was amazing, definitely going back again. It was straight across the highway from Barnes and Noble. We played Dominoes for a bit, Ty got a new book that he began to read and we just took it easy for a change. 

Tuesday morning we headed out of town at 6:40am and trekked across back to Durango, CO. We strolled around their fun Main Street and barely found the Thai Kitchen restaurant. Ate delicious Pad Thai, Panang Curry and Green Curry. Found a book shop and Ally and Tyler got new books. Ty finished the one we bought him yesterday already. We did have a thirteen hour drive today. Everyone is tucked in their beds so I am heading to sleep myself. Fun trip so far, glad the hard work part is behind us. 

June 15-Durango last night, Silverton today. We woke up not too early and headed down for the hotels free breakfast. We were staying in a Hilton Residents Suite place that was awesome. Headed off to check out Silverton and the train they have going between Durango and Silverton. We enjoyed the quick one hour drive over the pass and into Silverton. Lovely waterfalls and great mountain views. It is gorgeous in this part of the country. The old Victorian style town of Silverton is adorable. People are dressed up in twenties style clothes and walking around town acting like the towns founders. They have a live piano player in the corner saloon you can hear as you walk around the little town or eat lunch in the saloon. My favorite shop though was a cigar guitar makers shop. SanJuaninstruments.com He had four string guitars made from either cigar boxes or cookie tins. I bought a cookie tin four string guitar that I am in love with. So fun! They had a leather workers shop, a blacksmith shop we ordered a BJP brand sign from him. He will send it off to us in around two weeks. It will be awesome, can’t wait to see it. One guy had made old driftwood tables, filled in the holes with bits of turquoise rocks and then lacquered over the entire project. They looked really nice. Lots of nice shopkeepers and a real homey feel to the town. We even found a lady who had a 14 month old german pointer as her shop dog. Said he was the puppy from hell but she loves her little Gunner. Sounds familiar. All dirt roads and lots of run down corners but I am smitten with Silverton. They said only two hundred people winter over in Silverton. The elevation was 9500 feet.  We drove up toward the gold mine and enjoyed the gorgeous trees, tailings and old mine shafts everywhere. Saw a hot springs calcification dome- like a mini Mammoth Hot Springs. Really mini. The was was barely warm but it is definitely a mineral hot spring. 

Headed off to Cortez around 5:00pm. Found our hotel there, Hampton Inn & Suites. Again, really nice big room with a pull out couch. Swam in the hotel pool for a bit, soaked my very sore hamstrings in the hot tub. We walked next door to Destination Grill for dinner. It was ranked the top restaurant in Cortez but my soup wasn’t very good. The boys ordered hamburgers which were enormous and pretty good. Ally enjoyed her cheese pizza. Tourist towns don’t really grow amazing food places. Everyone is happy and tucked into bed. I’m exhausted. Onto Mesa Verde and Bryce Canyon tomorrow. Can’t wait.

Bryce Canyon...I had looked forward to Bryce for ages. The Queens Garden Trail had amazing reviews and I was so excited to take that hike. Byron and I had a little argument shall we say before we left the hotel for the day and I was livid. I did not enjoy Bryce Canyon-I was fuming. I just wanted to be home. So, it is undeniably gorgeous but wish I had hit it on a different day. 

Mesa Verde we had hiked through the day before Bryce and it was amazing. We did one of their tours and had another scheduled for the afternoon. Just before our second tour a rock had fallen and hit a ten year old girl in the chest after it rickashayed off of a edge. She was lifted out of the canyon on a stretcher by paramedics and firemen. Poor thing. They said she was going to live but they did cancel the next few tours in order to make sure the rock ledges were not going to continue to fall. I guess it's a risk you take when you are hiking around in southern Utah, but wow. 

Our guide was interesting and entertaining. The kids were even interested in what he had to say. It is interesting to see such old civilization still around. They even had a nursery room where they raised up the little ones.

The exit/entrance was pretty much one at a time. Good security. Can't storm the castle when you have to come through crawling.

Not sure how they would get the little kids in and out of here. Pretty intense.

This was the second tours beginning point.

Of course they had another awesome rock shop to look through. This one had loads of unsorted rock piles out back. Great selection.

We did a little gold panning on our stop for a hike. We were driving home today but wanted to fit in another destination. This was a tiny gold town.  We got a bit lost on our hike and never really saw the waterfalls very well. Can't win them all.