Silverton and smoke

August 13, 2025August 13, 2025 / rugreen4u4632 / 1 Comment

We went to Silverton to do the Colorado trail near Molas lake. There is a kick ass boondock campground here that we need to remember for next time. To get from Ridgeway state park to Silverton you have to take US 550 (The million dollar highway) which goes over Red mountain pass. I haven’t been through since 1992 when George and I did a cross country trip after our freshman year of college. The road was built by a private citizen and originally served as a toll road for the mining trade to get north/south between Ouray & Silverton.

Along this road, you can see all the dead silver mines which is also why the Uncompahgre River in ouray is yellow. As it rains, iron from the mining caves the leaches out into the water table. Makes me think twice about drinking the water here.

Check out the signage on the red mountain pass. You don’t see that every day. We also had another rare sighting. We had a gnome at the trail head sharing wifi so I knew the day would turn out great.

Colorado trail

We went into Silverton next and grabbed a pizza and brew. Nice little train tourist town. Very chill after the train left.

It got super smoky today while we were out. You can’t even see the mountains from our campsite.:(

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Telluride, CO

August 12, 2025August 13, 2025 / rugreen4u4632 / Leave a comment

Headed to Telluride today after an another amazing campground chef breakfast. I do love some eggs at the campground.

Telluride is about an hour away and it was pretty smoky this morning. I guess the fires are kicking it. The hike we took was called Bear Creek canyon with two beautiful waterfalls at the end. After the hike. We ate at the smugglers Union brew house and wandered the streets of town in search of the best Colorado stickers.

It was a great evening chilling at the campground, playing cribbage, and reading books. Dinner was smoked salmon that Fiona brought from Alaska and free dadcation cheese.

Ouray

August 11, 2025August 11, 2025 / rugreen4u4632 / Leave a comment

Beautiful hike today on the perimeter trail around ouray in the same Juan mountains. We are staying in Ridgeway state park which is also beautiful. We are having a great time. Honestly, on the hike I got a little tired so my soak in the hot tubs was amazing. George was a good sport about letting me get my soak on. It felt so good.

My ass was in those hot springs within the hour

Colorado

August 9, 2025August 9, 2025 / rugreen4u4632 / Leave a comment

I met up with George on Wednesday at the end of dadcation3.0. He dropped the Dad’s and picked me up the same morning. They probably caught the same plane . Courtesy picture of the dads.

We have been staying at Chatfield State Park South West of Denver in a town called Littleton. We’ve spent some time hiking after work and catching up with family and friends in Golden. News flash Sally and Luke got married the day before we met up with them. Cheers to the newly Weds!

Fiona arrived today exhausted but she got to see the borealis from the plane. We are on our way to Ridgeway state park. We hope to avoid the Rio Blanco fire that has burned 75,000 acres in 7 days.

New York to Shenandoah.

July 26, 2025 / rugreen4u4632 / Leave a comment

We’ve had a couple of nice beautiful travel days. It was interesting to see corn rows with mountains behind them. We stopped at a brewery for lunch in Ellicottville, NY. Highly recommend if you end up near the area. We stayed the evening at Allegheny State Park in South Western NY. This park is huge. I wished we had more time to explore here. There were bike paths and a couple of lakes. I’m sure it’s gorgeous in the fall.

We decided to grab some of that beautiful corn for our campground feast.

Next stop was shanondoah np, but since we were going through Maryland, we stopped for a dozen crabs. It was 95 degrees outside, so they even let us bring our doodle in.

We are leaving loft mountain because something happened to the water and they have no showers but the campgrounds were beautiful. We are on our way to a county Park outside Abingdon called Washington county Park.

We just finished Miracle and Wonder about Paul Simon interviewed by Malcolm Gladwell. It was fabulous. Highly recommend.

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Niagra Falls

July 24, 2025July 24, 2025 / rugreen4u4632 / Leave a comment

We left Cayuga Lake after work on Monday and arrived at Four Mile Creek campground on lake Ontario, before 8. (I can’t help but wonder if these bodies of water will also be renamed by our ignorant dictator?)…

We were hungry but the Shoffners had prepared a feast! I’ve taken very few pictures of food on this trip but our campground chefs have outdone themselves.

I worked Monday -Wednesday but our timing to the parks could not have been better. After work is the best time to see Niagra falls. Our parking pass at Four Mile allowed us to park at Niagara for free. We walked right onto the maid of the midst with no line.

Niagra falls on the Canadian side is a mad house, like Gatlinburg/ Coney Island on steroids. There is a street (Clifton) that was loud, crowded, and tacky. The US side is a sleepy little town. We were a little surprised to see the gaudier side of the Canadians but they sure had some great food. We ate at an amazing Indian restaurant then got to see a sunset.

Wednesday evening we went back to Niagra on the Canadian side and stayed late enough to catch the fireworks from the Canadian side. We were a little surprised that the Americans didn’t return fire…

Bonus, the weather early this week has been amazing. Today I think the heat is going to catch back up with us.

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Watson’s Glenn to Cayuga Lake (Finger Lakes)

July 24, 2025July 24, 2025 / rugreen4u4632 / Leave a comment

We got up early to hike before the crowds gathered in the canyon. just a few more pics from Glenn canyon.

We had lunch at grist iron for lunch on Seneca lake on our way out of town. Then we traveled north to Cayuga lake State Park.

We stopped at Hosmer and Knapp winery along the way and had a great time grabbing some wines for the trip.

So far we’ve had a great time in the finger lakes of New York.

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Pennsylvania New York

July 20, 2025July 20, 2025 / rugreen4u4632 / Leave a comment

George and I spent our first few nights of our trip in Pennsylvania at a beautiful state park Francis Slocum. The lake was u shaped and I wished we’d had a boat. We took several great walks.

We left PA after work. George had a weird ear ache vertigo on the way to New York. He felt awful, so I pumped myself up to park the camper myself and just failed miserably. He had to bail me out. The Shoffners joined us at Watsons Glenn late last night. We took a hike this morning in the canyon. The canyon is stunning. Here are a few pictures

Afterwards we biked to some wineries and found some dinosaurs, yeah for real, who knew such treasures awaited us.

My belly is full. My feet and butt are tired.

White Pocket

May 23, 2025 / rugreen4u4632 / 1 Comment

My house sitting host, Sue, suggested we go to White Pocket, but the Hyundai accent would never make it in the sand or the rocks. Luckily Adam and Laura drive Barb, a beautiful white stallion (Toyota Tacoma TRD). I fell in love with Barb, she’s a beast.

We met them before 6 after checking out. We drove through the vermilion cliffs, across the Navajo marble canyon, stopped in at the condor release sight. Then deflated the tires on Barb and let Adam get his bad-ass out. White Pocket is a bit of a mystery. There weren’t very many signs describing the geology but I did find this link.

The White Pocket, USA

After the hike we stopped back by the condor viewing area and saw one of the 400 remaining California condors left. At one time there were only 20. There was a raptor biologist sitting there waiting on a tour group that answered all our questions.

It was a great day. Sad for the trip to be over but happy to be in my camper this weekend with some good friends and a doodle

The wave!

May 23, 2025May 23, 2025 / rugreen4u4632 / Leave a comment

There is a lottery for coyote buttes North(the wave). We have applied in the advance lottery as well as the daily 48 hr advance every time we have been through Arizona. The 48 hour advance is tricky since you have to be in the geo-fence to apply. We think we’ve applied at least 20 times before hitting the jackpot! What a gem. Photos don’t do it justice.

We started our day at 4 and took the 8 mile bump-ass road to the trail-head loaded down with our gallon of water each (a volunteer checks you as you park ). They don’t mess around. You have to go to an in person briefing to pick up your pass.

We were on the trail by 6 am. These pictures are on the way there and at the wave proper. There was no one behind us and we had the whole place to ourselves for about 45 minutes. Lots of selfies since we were by ourselves.

I slip slided when I attempted to reach the arch and gave up. So we went back to the wave and had some people take out pictures. Then are a surprisingly quiet lunch right on the wave.

Next we went to check out some dinosaur tracks on the way home. The BLM volunteers checked on us and pointed out a goat. How fun is that? That evening we meet up with Adam and Laura for a hike at bee hive and sunset at lake Powell.