the great southwest colorado adventure

4th of july weekend harvest
(welcome home from our garden)

I may have mentioned this before here but Davis has little time off, especially this first year of work. The 4th of July turned into a four day weekend and we had to seize the opportunity to explore. The whole time we lived in Fort Collins, we wanted to check out Mesa Verde where the Ancestral Puebloans built incredible living structures into the cliffs of southwestern Colorado. Additionally, some Fort Collins friends would be spending the holiday in Telluride, another location we wanted to check out in Colorado. Lucky for us, they are closer to Salt Lake City than Fort Collins. The west is just so big. To help make our little adventure cheaper, we camped and basically couch surfed with a friend of a friend. We had a grand time exploring. If there was anything we wanted to go out of the way to see, we'd ask ourselves why not?! and if no good naysayers spoke up, we did it. Therefore we saw quite a bit of fantastic Colorado countryside and unique towns that are spread throughout southwest Colorado. Colorado has a special place in our hearts now, the trip was somewhat bitter sweet since we have not quite settled into the Utahn mindset.  It was somewhat humorous driving home Sunday to see a long line of Colorado cars coming out of Utah back to their state. Both are awesome places, we just miss Colorado. Enough words, I'll just show pictures and make comments as needed. If you get the chance, come check out this area. It will not disappoint and we barely scratched the surface in our whirlwind tour.


We stayed in the Mancos Valley, very close to Mesa Verde National Park. I took a million pictures of the trip, but I'll spare y'all some.

Driving in...

we passed by arches and moab, saved it
for another adventure!

from camping, down into Mancos Valley

up into San Juan Mountains

little fishing in the evening

dinner of champions, we had some veggies too

he is wonderful
(and not mad I took this)

On Friday, we went to Mesa Verde National Park. We enjoyed it very much. Davis was taking mental notes on how to grow crops in dry aired places since the ancestral puebloans seemed to have a handle on it. The structures they built during the same time castles were built in Europe are mind boggling. You can't help but think why? It is an extremely interesting place to visit.

they went up this mesa and spread out on top and in the canyons

before they went into the cliffs

every place had a kiva
(a circular room built into the group)

stopped for some non-primal indian fry bread before our tour

the cliff palace, the largest cliff dwellings

multiple stories

survey the ruins

before the tour, for perspective

not a window, it's their door

another view

There were several stops you could see much smaller but still mind boggling places they chose to live.

see some doorways across the canyon?

home sweet home

up close

If you can tell, same dead tree in the middle of two picture above is straight across
it's the same place just without zoom :)

top of mesa verde

top of mesa verde

top of mesa verde

After all the Cliff Dwellers, we had some time before needed to make dinner. We saw a sign for Durango, about 30 minutes down the road, so we said why not?! It's super pretty where ever you drive so even that made it worth while. Turns out, Durango is a cool town. Reminded us of Fort Collins, with very little suburbs.

Downtown Durango

cooling off with fro-yo :)

The next day we headed North-ish to Telluride. Telluride is so idyllic and beautiful. However, the price of real estate is obscene. People live in these cute little tool-shed sized homes "worth" a million dollars. They do have a free gondola and some of the best mountains anywhere. Plus we saw a few familiar faces.

My best of all friends, Viola

Little charlie rocking his hat

Emelia, proof that Rich and Anna were around too

I forgot to get picture of the adults, oops. Kids prove there were probably adults around.

telluride, colorado

Telluride in the valley from the gondola

We spend Saturday with friends relaxing and exploring Telluride. It was a wonderful adventure. The next day we got on the road again to head home but the scenic way. We stopped in Ouray and Ridgeway Colorado.

Ouray, Colorado
Telluride's not as uppity twin(ish) town

breakfast in Ridgeway

Ridgeway breakfast spot

Between Telluride and Ridgeway

road into Ouray

We had to drive through Montrose on our way and just about 15 miles outside of Montrose is the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Naturally, we stopped there too.

Black Canyons, south rim

Gunnison river down yonder

crusty road trip campers

 After the canyons, we made stop in Grand Junction for some libations not so easily obtained in Utah. We enjoyed our trip so much and miss the culture of Colorado. We made mental notes of places we need to return to for visiting.

back to utah!

I kept complaining about Utah the entire trip. Then we pulled into the Salt Lake Valley, with the Wasatch range welcoming us back. We both exclaimed man! it's really beautiful here too! We so often take for granted the beauty around us. Contentment is important, it helps us to be thankful for the many earthly blessings so generously given to us. Realizing our contentment should not make us complacent or lazy, but gracious and grateful.

driving down the interstate in salt lake city