What can one say about Ouray Colorado, it’s one of the most beautiful places we have ever visited and is known by many as the “Little Switzerland of Colorado”? The only way to see the beauty of this region is to visit. We have been here many times and tried to capture its beauty in photographs but most of the time when we get home we look at them and say, I thought it was prettier than this. We have traveled the “Million Dollar Highway” between Ouray and Silverton following its twists and turns to discover some great off road adventures. One of my favorites is the “Lime Creek Road” between Silverton an Durango that offers beautiful scenery and a bumpy ride.

This trip was a little different because we brought our own home away from home, Lill’ Hilton on Wheels, with us…we drug it behind our truck the “Lill’ Mule”. Since we got married and took our first vacation together we have call all of our vehicles Lill Mule  starting with the 2000 Chrysler, because we did our first 4×4 drive in it….yes we did!!! It was the cottonwood drive, a shortcut, between Page Arizona and Kodachrome basin, a short 46 mile dirt road, and it was fantastic. Our average speed on the Cottonwood drive was around 7 mph so it took a loooooog time to go 46 miles.

Back to Ouray, did I mention that it rained every day we were there? The rain didn’t deter us though, we trudged along and took our photos anyway, capturing some very dramatic skies.

Thanks for following our trip…”Wish you were here”.

Old mining camp

Looking down at the creek from the Million Dollar Highway.

Waterfall along the MDH

Aspens, Valerie s favorites.

Up in the clouds.

Stopping on the road for Val Anne to take a photo.

Looking down the street in Ouray.

A photographer told me once it’s all about the light. After looking at this photo I would have to agree.

Lime creek road between Silverton and Durango.

Aspens again…every time we pass aspens we have to take our picture together.

Val made me put this one on the blog, just because she said.

An old mining camp.

Road work had us stopped for a while so what else was there to do…take more photos.

Along the way!

Along the way.

Even though I lived in NM for a lot of my childhood I don’t remember ever going to Taos. After seeing it for the first time I think it is probably like some other touristy towns we have visited, very clean, lots of nice shops and wonderful restaurants. Speaking of restaurants, a place called “Bella’s Mexican Grill” has some of the best Mexican food I have ever eaten and is rated the #1 restaurant on TripAdvisor. We visited the Taos Pueblo, a very old Catholic Church, the San Francisco de Assisi Mission Church
Ranchos de Taos (http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/american_latino_heritage/san_francisco_de_assisi_mission_church.html),

New Mexico and the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.

An old cabin on the drive to Taos. On the other end someone has added fiberglass siding like the stuff used on greenhouses, so I shot from this end it looked better.

A little dugout beside the shack.

The San Francisco De Asis Catholic church.

The San Francisco De Asis Catholic church.

Street shot.

You see what I mean about being a clean town.

I loved this bench.

A cemetery behind the original church.

The original bell still stands in church steeple.

Corn anyone.

Taos Pueblo

Taos Pueblo

The old Taos Pueblo church cemetery.

The old Taos Pueblo church cemetery.

The old Taos Pueblo church cemetery.

The old Taos Pueblo church cemetery.

A little bit of color in a sandstone world.

“A Rose by another name”

All tuckered out.

The Rio Grande gorge bridge.

After a relaxing time in Palo Duro it was time to hit the road for another adventure, this time in New Mexico, “The Land of Enchantment”. Well, I have been to NM many times and until you visit the Northern part of the state most of it looks pretty much the same, dry and desolate.  After a long drive we arrived in Eagle Nest late Saturday the 29th and was greeted with cooler temps and beautiful scenery. This part of New Mexico is reminiscent of Colorado, mountains, blue spruce and beautiful skies not to mention we are at 8238 feet elevation. Eagle Nest NM is just a few miles down the road from Red River a very desirable ski area and just a little farther is Taos and Angel Fire.

After settling in we decided to go to Red River for the first day to see the sights and take some photos and do some exploring. We wanted to see how the “Little Mule” would do off road so we stopped at the tourist info place and got a map of the off road trails and proceeded to test the “Chevy”…she did good.

We drove a 4×4 trail up to Cabresto Lake, then we decided to drive to the National Monument-Rio Grande Del Norte. When we got up there we realized we had been there before! It was called Wild River. It had been recently named a National Monument!

Looking down on Red River Colorado

Val explorinig a mine shaft, it was even more interesting watching her crawl under those timbers. If she had looked to the left there was a path….

Looking deep into the mine shaft…we didn’t go in very far.

Cabresto Lake

We encountered these hikers while we were at Cabresto Lake, they had walked over 6 miles through the mountains.

Me and Val at the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, formally know as Wild River

Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, formally know as Wild River

Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, formally know as Wild River

Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, formally know as Wild River

Blue bird

Blue Bird

A mountain blue bird at Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, formally know as Wild River

Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, formally know as Wild River

Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, formally know as Wild River. It’s raining on the mountain.

Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, formally know as Wild River

Valerie’s plan was to get up early and load the photography stuff and toothbrush and head out of town. “NOT”…everyone that knows me knows that I am a procrastinator. That being said, you have it figgered out that we were a little later leaving that Val had hoped for. Stopped for some ice before leaving town and remembered the first thing we had forgotten…back to the house to pick up an electronic cable and we are off.

It was a fairly uneventful trip to Palo Duro Canyon state park, I think the GPS said it would be about an 8 hour drive but it took us about 10. We drove a little slower and did stop for lunch and many times for fuel. Pulling this camper does add to the fuel cost but having our own bed and stuff is well worth the extra expense.

This part of Texas has it’s own beauty that is vastly different from the Piney Woods. Creepy crawly things everywhere, just look down to see a variety of bug’s. Every kind of ant you can think of but I haven’t seen any fire ants yet. Lizards and toads everywhere along the hiking paths, yes, we did go hiking. We decided to take the Paseo Del Rio trail about 1.5 miles in and 1.5 out. When we started out the thermometer at the trail head said 90 but as some say it is dry heat, not as bad as east Texas with 90% humidity well I’m here to tell you it’s like sticking your head in an oven, it’s dry and hot. Back to the trail story. After about half of the way we noticed that our trail was running parallel to the road but we kept trekking along. Still it was a nice walk, fairly level along the river…very little water in the river. Well we finally arrived at the end of the trail, an old water tank and a windmill…but it looked familiar…it was…it was next to our camp site. Aren’t we adventurous.

Evening shot of the river, I told you there was not much water.

This is what we awoke to the first morning.

I must have been setting something on my camera.

Along the trail we stopped for a break to cool off.

Resting in the shade on our walk back to our truck.

At the end of the trail.

Ouch!

A hike to cave in Palo Duro

Taken from the overlook at the visitors center.

Another from the visitors center.

Infrared

Another infrared.

This year we will experience something we thought we would never do, travel in a travel trailer. We decided we were tired of dragging our luggage and photography equipment in and out of motels across this country so we splurged and got a Lance 19 ft camper. Starting on August 28th we will start our journey to the mountains of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming with some unscheduled stops in-between, you know us we are apt to change directions at the drop of a hat