May 16-23 2010Colorado

Long drive home.  Hated to return to cooler weather. But the glass show was fun.  It was great to see my friends.John started the eviction and then of course it was boating season, and I could move more of my possessions up to Fort Collins.

Stormy weather on the way back.

Stormy weather on the way back.

We stopped by my house. The neighbors put up a new plastic fence, kind of dumped on my garden and the tulips ere blooming.

Glass show prizes. First Place in Mixed with Ancient Mexico, Third in mixed with blue bouquet

Prize wiener herself. and second in mixed with forest floor

Honorable mention in theme(gardens) with garden path. Mandy and John(you can only see his arm)riding in boats to the put in

,John Gross surfing, John Moran surfing

Tina and Barry. All on the Poudre

May 10-12 back to Colorado

On the 10th, John decided he needed a hair cut, after seeing the dork photos. He thinks when it is long it looks like bozo. You decide. We had to leave to go back to Colorado. I had a glass show, John had to evict renters. We had to pick up all the things  we forgot and drop off all the stuff we didn’t need. Maiden Voyage over I guess. On the 10th and 11th the wind blew with gusts to 70 miles an hour. We decided not to drive the bus in those cross winds, hung out at Wahweap and watched movies. On the 12th we went back to Colorado-still winter. Boo. We parked in Pagosa and soaked at the hot springs.

John’s hair before cut, bus back in winter in Pagosa

John in the upper pool at Pagosa Hot Springs

John soaking, not the best panorama, but you get the idea. The aspen had their spring green little leaves

John in another upper pool

John-water back massage

Sue getting one too.

May 9, 2010 Vermillion cliffs, Buckskin and Wire pass Narrows

We got up at the crack of dawn to be at the Vermillion cliffs ranger station to get in a lottery drawing to go into the Wave. It is this fabulous canyon that is so pristine they only let 20 people a day go in there. They do a lottery on the internet 4 months in advance for 10 and draw 10 names the day of. There were 75 people there this morning.  Most were Europeans. We did not win a pass. So we went to another awesome narrows  nearby instead. Wire pass narrows to Buckskin narrows. Really narrow, really, really , really deep. Every time I heard the wind I thought it was a flash flood, and there was no way on earth you could get out of this place. Wire pass is about 1/4 mile long, not as deep, but very narrow, only a few feet in places. Buckskin was 10-20 feet wide and a couple hundred feet deep. the narrows go for 10 miles, but we only went about 4, we had to hike back out too. I took hundreds of photos, here are a few.

John wore his best dorky outfit for the hike, wire pass canyon narrows

Buckskin


Buckskin with John in a couple

John in Buckskin, the last one he is by a rock that looks like an elephant

John under a piece of driftwood 30 feet up, the water has run that deep there. The second one is a log jam, you can see John just under it. That log jam went up at least 50–70 feet high.


,here is the underneath view of it. You would die for sure in a flash flood. Buckskin, the arrow points to Johns legs

Sue  with rocks, and a petroglyph

Sue in Buckskin, a varnished wall

John coming back out Wire Pass narrows.
We love these slot canyons, there are tons of them in the Vermillion Cliffs. We didn’t get time to hike them all, and we still need to try again for the Wave.

May 8, 2010 Grand Canyon put in at Paria Canyon, Utah

We drove down to the Lees Ferry, which is the put in for the Grand Canyon. Martha and Jimjim were going on a forest service trip and we arrived to bon voyage them. Then we hiked a ways up the bottom of Paria Canyon.

Cabin ruin  where Lee and his family  lived at Lee’s Ferry, Martha and Jimjim

rigging up to boat down the grand Canyon, Martha and John Moran with Moran's at the headline in the paper

Looking up Paria Canyon, prickly poppies

Paria Canyon , cactus blooms

and the old Mormon settlement in Paria Canyon, Datura

This great German bus we saw in the Wal-Mart parking lot. The front half above are passenger seats, underneath is a kitchen that slides out. The back is a bunk house  with three stories of bunks, the far wall slides out to make room to get into the bedrooms.