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Continuing on our Colorado journey, we headed along the Million Dollar Highway, a scenic 70-mile drive through Colorado's rugged San Juan Mountains. The highway connects Durango to Silverton and on to Ouray. It is known for its spectacular views, but it is also a treacherous route -- tight switchbacks, stomach-turning vertical drop-offs, mountain passes rising to more than 11,000 feet with similar descents -- with potential for sudden rockslides and elk leaping across the road. It lacks guard rails most of the way. I wouldn't want to drive a fuel tank along this route, that's for sure. But I can understand why gas costs increase as you travel north. It's an absolutely breath-taking route, but cautious driving is required. And don't do what I saw one old pick-up driver doing at an overlook -- he was drinking beer.

The drive takes you along the historic route that once connected mining towns of old. Around Silverton and along Red Mountain Pass, one can see the remains of mines, old buildings, railroad tracks, and more.

The Red Mountains are suitably named. 

And on distant mountains, a bit of snow remains in the high altitude.

There is a ghost town of sorts in the Red Mountain area, with an informative overlook to tell the tale.

We passed through some incredible mountain passageways, glimpsing waterfalls and river scenes along the way. The town of Ouray seems to be a fun place to visit -- it was quite crowded -- but we opted to continue on.

At Montrose, we headed east to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Wow. With narrow canyons and sheer walls dropping a huge distance to the river below, the views are dramatic and a little unsettling. We'd never seen any place like it. If you are in Colorado, it is so worth the drive. Pictures cannot do it justice. I know -- I checked out all the postcards and books on the Black Canyon and not a one could capture the wonder and startling depth of the place. You must visit it.  

  It might not look like it in these pictures, but it's a realllllly long way down to the river. We were standing 2,000 feet up.

The descent to the river below is quite steep -- 16% -- with extremely narrow turns.

And along the rim, one walks along shrubs and shrubs of Mountain-Mahogany (Cercocarpus montanus), with all its feathery plumes. I call this photo "The Running Man" -- though really, it looks like two people.

We headed past Blue Mesa Lake to Lake City. The small town's most famous tale is that of Alferd (Alfred) Packer, the man accused of cannibalizing his companions during a long harsh winter in the 1800s. We enjoyed a walk through the small historic town -- and ice cream floats from the town's famous soda shop. The bees buzzed happily from flower to flower along the sidewalks.

From Lake City we headed south along 149 to Slumgullion Pass. The route takes you on a 9% grade to the peak with some very tight turns. Pretty, but scary. The last time I was on this pass, it was raining. That's scarier. 

We camped this time at Bristol Head, a small campground just down a dirt road from Clear Creek Falls. The falls are some of the most photographed falls in Colorado -- and rock climbers enjoy the challenge of the short cliff faces.

The area is popular for flyfishing, and the old mining town of Creede is nearby and a nice place to visit. My sons like to visit the mining museum -- not to see anything related to mining, mind you. It is one of the few places you can buy food to feed the chipmunks and ground squirrels.

The hummingbirds are quite numerous at Bristol Head. My parents put out feeders on their camper, and I enjoyed the birds' antics for hours and hours. Sometimes, particularly at dusk, more than a dozen hummers would fight for the feeders at one time.

For those of us in Texas and farther east, this cutie bears a resemblance to our Ruby-Throated hummer, but it is actually a Broad-Tailed Hummingbird, lacking the black band along the top of the ruby color.

Many of the hummingbirds squabbled with one another, not content taking turns... pretty much ever.

The Rufous Hummingbirds were quite brassy, both in appearance and personality.

They weren't shy about poking other birds in the head to get them to move.

I'm not sure what kind of bird this is. This year I bought a book on Colorado wildflowers -- next time I really need to get one on Colorado birds (and another on butterflies).

After a couple of nights, we took down the tent again and packed the car. We said goodbye to my folks and then headed south past Creede and along Wolf Creek Pass. We made a short stop at Treasure Falls, taking a quick hike to a lovely view.

There we also saw a very lovely black and white butterfly, a Weidemeyer's Admiral. It was doing the puddling thing outside the men's restroom. Gross (and kind of an embarrassing spot to take a picture). But a pretty butterfly.

From the falls, we drove the short distance to Durango and then to Mesa Verde, where the Anasazi built their amazing cliff dwellings many hundreds of years ago. Below is Spruce Tree House.

The boys and I had visited Mesa Verde a couple of years ago. This year we added to our visit a drive along the rim, and we saw views of even more cliff dwellings. You can see Cliff Palace, the largest site, in the background below.

"Square Tower House"

An eagle nest above Square Tower House -- a perfect spot for it, I'd say.

"Oak Tree House"

"Sunset House"

"Mummy House"

Mesa Verde is just 5-6 hours from Grand Canyon. That's practically nothing in Texas time -- so we left the cliff dwellings and headed farther west into Arizona. Part III of our trip next!

We like to take road trips. We leave behind TVs, computers, video games, and the like, taking only with us as entertainment audiobooks (this trip we listened to the Fablehaven series), journals, puzzle books, and select books to read. And, of course, I bring along my camera.

Our summer vacation for 2010 consisted of a trip to southwest Colorado, camping in the Durango/San Juan Mountains area, circling up to Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Lake City, traveling farther west to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and eventually heading home, with lots of mini-detours along the way. One of our dogs joined us for the trip (the other two had their own vacation at a doggy play camp), making for an interesting twist to the planning of vacation activities.

Well, we had a fine trip. We ventured west from Austin through San Angelo (dog-friendly fort there) and headed to Roswell, New Mexico, home of the mysterious 1947 crash that became known as the UFO Incident. Although we didn't bother with the museum in Roswell, we had great fun seeking the various aliens around town.

Sure, most of them (ok, all) are placed there by businesses hoping to get a boost from tourists, but even the city got involved with their unique streetlamps. Totally kitschy and cheesy.

In Albuquerque we stopped at the Petroglyph National Monument, venturing briefly up the short Piedras Marcadas trail. We couldn't spend much time there -- the sand was too hot for Grover's paws, so only two of us zipped up the trail to find a couple of petroglyphs, snap pictures, and leave. Alas. We'll go back another time.

But we were greeted by the wildlife just the same.

This black-tailed rabbit kept playing peek-a-boo with us. Long ears and long legs and long feet -- it has a black stripe down the back of its tail for easy ID, but of course you can't see it in the side view.

In Colorado we camped with my parents near Durango for the first few days. The weather was perfect, and the ever-gorgeous scenery of Colorado made us both wistful and content. The boys enjoyed fishing with their grandpa at a small lake in the San Juan Mountains. In fact, we spent quite a bit of time at Haviland Lake, hiking and swimming there as well.

I enjoyed taking a few pictures, but I never managed to capture a picture of the raptors swooping down to catch fish in the water. They did so at dusk, not being considerate enough to fly when I returned in better light. Considering the fishing skill involved, I wondered whether they were osprey, but it's possible they were eagles. We also spotted a beaver swimming lazily in the water...at...dusk...too. My youngest caught his first fish completely in the dark with me already heading back up to the car. What is up with that?!! Well, at least the setting entertained me in the light.

Hmmm, might this be wild chamomile? Whatever it is, it was present in most places we visited in Colorado.

Colorado has the biggest dandelions I've ever seen. Inches across, they are.

  The lovely white flower below, if I've labelled it correctly, is not one to consider loving too closely. Its name is Death Camas. Guess why. Yep, all parts highly poisonous. One of those "I wish I'd known it at the time" moments for me, yes, but this is why we don't eat plants we don't know! According to what I read, however, occasionally a pioneer mistook the bulbs as those of wild onions, to tragic effect.

Canada geese, a common sight at lakes in Colorado...

White geranium. There's a pink variety, too.

There are numerous purple thistles around the area. The one below is, I believe, a musk thistle. Pretty, yes, but musk thistles are on the Invasives list for Colorado-- native to Europe, they spread quickly and are not palatable to livestock. At first I admired them, until I realized that I shouldn't. And then I realized they were everywhere. 

The ever adorable ground squirrel -- a common sight all over Colorado. In many places, this little cutie (and its cousins) is considered a pest, too -- and a harborer of fleas and disease. But that doesn't change the fact that it's cute! We saw many chipmunks, too.

Okay, this fooled me. We stayed clear of these leaves of three and red stems, thinking it was poison ivy, but upon closer look (via photos) those notches make me think it might be box elder. In any case, better to be safe than sorry! 

This Horsetail variety did make me feel at home (Horsetail being one of my favorite Texas water plants) -- we found it along a stream in the San Juan Mountains, standing out among the ferns.

Aspen daisies, perhaps? Also known as Showy Daisies.

The Colorado Wild Rose -- reminds me a little of our Rose Pavonia back in Texas...

The Durango area has much to offer visitors. Excellent camping and hiking, a historic district in town, tubing and whitewater rafting, fishing areas, and area lakes, an old train that takes people up to the old mining town of Silverton (if you are willing to pay the outrageous costs --we drove there one afternoon instead), and it's just a short drive away from some of the most amazing cliff dwellings in America.

Because we had our dog with us, we couldn't go whitewater rafting, but the boys and I did drive out to Vallecito Lake to enjoy some canoeing. A very pretty lake, blue from afar, but actually somewhat red in color due to the red soil along the banks around it.

After a week in the Durango area, we broke camp and then headed to the airport to pick up my husband, who flew in to join us for the second half of our Wild West adventure. Stay tuned for Part II...

I've been in Mexico enjoying several days of celebration, culminating in my sister's beautiful wedding outside of San Miguel. And today I begin the process of working my way through all the pictures I took, so hopefully I'll have a few good ones to share. Aye, las flores y otras plantas de México son muy magníficas.

Thank you for all the comments you've sent in my absence. I have a lot of catching up to do!

A couple of years ago my boys and I went to Colorado with their grandparents, and we snuck out for a side-trip to beautiful Mesa Verde, a National Park in far southwestern Colorado, near the Four Corners. Mesa Verde is one of the most unique archeological sites in the world, for it was once the home of the Ancestral Puebloans who built hundreds of spectacular cliff dwellings along the mesa tops and within sheltered alcoves of the canyons. The Ancestral Puebloans lived there from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300 and then mysteriously abandoned their homes at Mesa Verde.

Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde and in North America, and it is aptly named. Not only is it huge, with about 150 rooms, it was quite a trek down the cliff to reach it. There were many kivas, or ceremonial rooms, along with storage rooms.

The temperature was very comfortable, and it's easy to understand why the Ancient Puebloans took shelter in the cliffs, out of the hot summer sun and cold winters.The doorways of the buildings were quite small. At 5'5", I would have been as tall as the tallest man. 

The Ancestral Puebloans were skilled masons, creating buildings of stone and wood that were sometimes two- or three-stories high. The wood is one of the ways the scientists dated the dwellings to about A.D. 1200.

Spruce Tree House was named for a spruce tree climbed on by explorers when they found the ancient site. The ladders led into reconstructed kivas.

Park visitors are allowed to go in the reconstructed kivas at Spruce Tree House, but I found out later that kivas are very sacred to the Pueblo Indians. I rather wish the park had closed off all the kivas out of respect to the Pueblo people. Our entering it was only because we didn't know better and it's part of the park tour. I'm showing this image simply because it's one of my favorites of my son, poking his head out from darkness into the brightness above.  

And then there is the Balcony House. This remarkable dwelling is only reached by climbing down stairs along a cliffside and then up a 32-foot ladder to get to the actual dwelling. Actually, it was one of three ladders we had to climb at Balcony House. If you think it sounds easy, then take a look at the picture below. 

For those with a tendency toward acrophobia, climbing a tall ladder with what seems like only a small ledge keeping you from falling into the deep, deep canyon below definitely requires some incredible will and an ability to master one's fears. I should add that we had waited out a thunderstorm with strong winds on the cliff above before the tour finally began, so I was already fairly alarmed that we were about to attempt such a climb with winds such as those blowing (it turns out the Balcony House was actually sheltered from the cliff winds). But because I was wanting my sons to enjoy something unique and spectacular without developing any of my awful fears, I kept my desire to panic very quiet and seriously practiced some breathing techniques to keep my calmness in check. But the ladder you see here will forever be known to me as the White-Knuckle Ladder. I actually don't have a fear of heights per se -- I love being up high -- it's just being at the edge of a cliff that gets me wobbly. And Mesa Verde is ALL cliffs, haha. 

The trip will always be a memorable one for me -- from the drive in to the drive out. For those with a strong fear of heights, it might not be the best park for you to visit. Even the 23-mile drive in was along the mountainside, with narrow turns and tight switchbacks, and while the views were incredible, I couldn't take my eyes off the road to even glance at them. Add to it that I made the mistake of not getting gas in nearby Durango, and I was rather inwardly freaked out that we were going to run out of gas or fall off a cliff to the canyon far below. We did neither. Phew. But despite my racing heart, I'd go back there in a flash to visit again.

This glimpse back at my Mesa Verde trip was inspired by Pam at Digging who is hosting a bloggers' tribute to national parks. Thanks for sending me on this trip down memory lane, Pam!