Morrow Reservoir

THE RAPIDS!!!!!

OK, so they don't look like much. But when you're novice canoe handlers, and you realize that you are heading into them sideways, they look HUGE!!!!! That I panicked is a given (especially for those who know me and my love of the water well!)...but that Nick was starting to panic made me almost have a heart attack later when I found out. Apparently he was trying to decide if he should save me or the camping gear when we went down...!!!! Fortunately I had on my trusty old PFD (for those of you who aren't familiar with nautical terms, this is a Personal Floatation Device - learn something new every day on this blog, eh?)... I won't step foot inside the canoe without it..so the end result was that Nick was going after the camping gear!!!

Fortunately, we managed to pull ourselves around and straighten up; and a little further down the lake it was all smiles and easy sailing!!!

The rapids are caused by the water being released from the Blue Mesa dam. We were supposed to be leaving early to try and reach them before the water was released, when they would have been virtually non existent...however, breakfast at the Sunshine Deli seemed like a much better idea at 7.30 on a Friday morning...and luckily we didn't regret our decision too much!

The Canyon that houses the reservoir is the start of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The walls aren't as high or as sheer as further west, but they are still pretty impressive in places. The waterfall was a good landing spot to try some fishing and get some water before we set off further down the canyon...

We didn't even see the first back country camp spot, and then the next few were occupied, so we kept on paddling. It was so peaceful. All you could hear was the sound of the paddles, birds flying overhead and the slapping of the trout Nick couldn't catch as they taunted him by jumping out of the water...oh yeah, and Nick and I yelling at each other as we were both trying to be captain and give directions....gotta remember that rule we set ourselves for when we learn to sail...Julie barks the orders on odd days, Nick is in charge on even days...I get more that way, since there are more odd days than even days!

We eventually found the next camp site, and were glad we had waited - it was perfect! The cliffs rose behind it and a creek rushed down to the lake.

There was a very professionally built fire ring and a great landing spot for the canoe. It was a trifle small, but then, in the scheme of things, so are we, so it worked great. The views were good too.

The fire worked great. We had had rain earlier in the evening and thought that the driftwood we had collected might be a bit too wet to burn, but we managed to get it going, and the ring was so well built that the breeze blowing through the canyon helped stoke it and keep it going.

The next morning, once I got up (!), we paddled back to Curecanti Creek.

We had decided to hike up to the top of the canyon with the back pack so we could lighten the canoe for the trip back in case the current was flowing fast. The hike up was about two miles, so not far at all, and it gave some great views of the canyon and the Curecanti Needle.

(My obsessive reading of historic markers told me that the Curecanti Needle was the first emblem of the Denver and Rio Grande Railways, and that they had chosen it as one of the first railway lines west was routed the the canyon...see, they are worth reading...).

The water flow on the way back after that did get faster (against us of course). And we eventually had to admit defeat (on both the fish catching stuff..sorry Nick...and the paddling back towards the dam stuff...).

So a mile from where we put in, we had to haul the canoe out. I leant over and almost put us in the water again (oops doesn't really cut it, does it?!)... and Nick then carried the 80 lb canoe back... back to the 300 or so steps that he had hauled it down the day before...and now had to haul it back up again to get us out of the canyon...

Needless to say he was a little sore the next day...but he didn't get the hernia or burst the blood vessel that I thought he would!

And of course we celebrated our first successful canoe/back country trip in style with a burger and beer at The Steep that night!!!

New Mexico & Arizona

New Mexico

After the Bahamas, we spent a day in Longmont and then left for New Mexico. The plan was to visit New Mexico and Arizona and spend some time visiting family. We took Nick's Mom, Flo, with us, and planned to spend a couple of weeks traveling around. First stop was Las Cruces New Mexico, to visit Nick's Aunt Toni and families.

This is Nick, Flo on the left and Toni

We love Las Cruces in the spring - the gardens in the old part of time of town, Old Mesilla, http://www.oldmesilla.org/ are just gorgeous - and the food isn't bad either! We love to eat at Andale! or La Posta. And of course, the specialty margaritas at the Double Eagle are always good. This spring they were serving pomegranate margaritas, which were so good, we had to buy a couple of bottles of the tequila they were using!

The Double Eagle building is the oldest on the square in Old Mesilla and was originally built in the 1840s. Legend says Billy the Kid was once imprisoned in the building...and the main dining room is always worth a peek!

http://www.double-eagle-mesilla.com/html/main_dining_room.html

I think hollihocks are now my favourite flower - they bloom everywhere here in the spring - the deep red and dark purple ones are especially stunning against the adobe walls...oh for a garden!

Here is Toni with her grandsons, Xander and Jotham.

They are Todd (Nick's cousin) and Laura's children (apologies to you both if the spellings are incorrect!)

And here is Nick with Audrey's girls, Jessica, Jasmine and Jade. The kids loved the pool - and we couldn't keep Nick out of it either - or off the trampoline!!!

In fact, he managed to find lots of toys to play with in Las Cruces! The riding mower was a dream come true...I keep telling him that now we don't have a lawn, there is no way he can have one, so he decided to "help" Toni out and mow her grass...

...and then he moved onto the pecan orchard and the tractor!!!

Eventually I managed to drag him away from all these new toys and we headed out to Tucson with the promise that we would come back and Nick could ride the tractor again...!

Arizona

Tucson was HOT!!!!! We had managed to time our visit for Memorial Weekend and Alex's graduation from high school. Congrats Alex! Here she is with Mom (Marci, one of the Gutierrez clan) and sister Savannah on the day of the big party...

It wasn't all fun and games. In return for room and board Marci had us working in her yard at 6 am on the morning of the party to get it finished!!!

Who am I kidding? It was great to be working in a garden again! Here is the section I planted with Alex and Savannah in the old fountain - not a bad day's work. Hopefully Jade is keeping out of it along with that lolling tongue of hers!

Alex graduation party was a great chance to catch up with all Nick's extended family down in Tucson. The sisters were in party mood as always...here's Judy cracking up at another of Jan's stories...I'm staying mum...the agreement was: "What happens in the back yard, stays in the back yard....!"

We managed a couple of days out while we were there. One morning we went to Sabino Canyon. http://www.sabinocanyon.com/

It's so hot down there that we started hiking around 6.30am, and by the time we had finished the 9 miles or so at 10 it was already too hot to be outside...yep, Crested Butte is far more comfortable...!

This was taken at Seven Falls. A lot of the trails were closed because of fire damage. This is one we have hiked before. It's better earlier in the spring when all the flowers and cactus are blooming, but it's still beautiful up there - and there was even some water left in the falls!

We also rode a tandem in Tubac (http://www.tubacarizona.com/)

- a first for us, and lots of fun...we were pretty much in sync, although Nick stopped a bit too quickly for me a couple of times...hint - it's a good idea to let the person on the back know what you are doing, otherwise they keep on pedalling...! And although it looks like I wasn't doing anything other than holding my hat on, I did do my fair share of the pedaling - honest Nick!!!

And there are those hollyhocks again - we had lunch at a great place in Tubac and were introduced to micheladas...ice cold beer, preferably from the freezer, poured over lots of ice and freshly squeezed lime with salt around the rim. Perfect for a hot Arizona day!!!

And of course, no trip to Tucson is complete without a photo of a giant Saguaro cactus. This one is at one of the resorts and is well over 150 years old....saguaros don't even produce their first arm until after they have been standing for 70 years...!

Our last day there, we had lunch with Jerry, Jane and Gil. At least it's a nice photo of Jane (in the middle!)

New Mexico

From Tucson we headed back to Las Cruces for a couple of days to spend a little more time with everyone there...and so Nick could ride the tractor again...! Then we headed to Roswell, NM; home of Veronica, Brian and Sterling, Nick's god-daughter and family, and of course, the world famous Roswell Alien museum, where we able to spend time investigating the alleged alien space ship crash of 1947 which was a lot of fun: http://www.roswellufomuseum.com/

Our verdict? Something happened out there that for some reason they are trying to cover up. The original accounts of all the local people involved are too consistent for it to be some sort of community conspiracy! And then the key people either disappeared or abruptly changed their version of events and refused to talk about it anymore...

After Roswell, we headed up to Tucumcari, the town on the old Route 66 that Nick was born in. Tucumcari has unfortunately lost some of it's splendour since the 60s when it was a thriving railroad community. Now the railroad no longer goes through town and the highway by-passes it about a mile to the south. Main St is full of closed up hotels and Route 66 souvenir shops. A lot of people have moved out to places such as Albuquerque, Amarillo, Las Cruces, Tucson and even Denver, but still go back to see friends and family on a regular basis. We visited Virgie and Marcello, Nick's aunt and Uncle on his Mom's side.

Here are (front to back) Rumor, Taneka and Crystal. Rumor is Nick's cousin Vanessa's daughter, and Taneka and Crystal are Valerie's daughters. The girls were hanging out enjoying their summer and nagging Marcello to let them have the hose pipe on in the back yard to cool off...they won!

We also were able to catch up with Frances and Carol, Flo's cousins. Here they are with Flo and Virgie.

And we spent some time in the library in Tucumcari trying to trace Nick's family tree. We weren't able to get a lot of information, but it gave us a start and made us realize how rich the history of the whole area is. Most of the last generation of the family came from ranches and towns around the area - even as far away as Las Vegas, New Mexico - looking for work when Tucumcari was booming. We know at least that Merced, Nick's paternal grandfather was from Las Vegas NM, so next time we are down that way, we will have to see what else we can find out.

This (not very good!) photo is of the disused railway station. It clearly shows the Hispanic roots of the community. Hopefully they will be able to renovate it and turn it into a museum or community center.

All in all we had a great time, covered about 3,000 miles, broke in Flo's new car, and got to see lots of people we haven't seen in ages. Thanks to everyone for their endless hospitality - we couldn't have afforded it if we would have had to stay in hotels every night and eaten in restaurants every day. And thanks to Carol Jean for the discounted hotel room in Tucumcari.

Curecanti Creek

This weekend we gave my feet a bit of a break (!) and did some car camping! We decided to check out access points for Morrow Reservoir which is in the Curecanti National Recreation Center. Morrow Reservoir is pretty much the start of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison - it sits to the west of the Blue Mesa Reservoir and dam. We are hoping to take the canoe down there next week to do some over night camping: we just have to get past those raging rapids that you can see on the left - I'm still not overly confident in my manoevering abilities!

Of course, Nick took his rod and did a little fishing. Unfortunately he didn't catch anything - hopefully next week will be more productive as we may actually need to keep the fish for something to eat!

We drove up Curecanti Creek road to the north of the reservoir looking for a place to camp. Since it was the weekend before July 4th, we figured we had better get off the beaten track... sometimes we forget that this area isn't as crowded as the Front Range tends to be. The road was decent though - there were even some trailers at the first couple of site options we saw. We eventually found a place...and realized we had forgotten the water filter! Good job we had the cooler loaded with plenty of ice to keep the beer cool!!!

The next day we drove further up the creek and found the perfect camp spot:

It was cool, shady, level, and right on the river.
We will be back!

Nick caught a ton of fish - the brookies were hitting his line every time it was presented...some of them weren't that big - but then neither was the river! I was quite content sitting and catching up on some summer reading in the shade!

This photo was later in the afternoon when some clouds passed over - it was completely dry on the ground and the sun was even shining a little, but the clouds had a rainbow in them. We thought it was pretty cool...

We came back later on Saturday so we could have a day here in Crested Butte and get some stuff done...yep, boring stuff like laundry, grocery shopping, vacuuming and working on the condo. The weather was beautiful up here after the heat in the Gunnison area (I feel sorry for those of you in Denver with 100 degree plus temps - and those in Tucson and New Mexico were I'm sure it's even hotter!). We rode down to CB South to test out the bikes -about 10 miles there and back, and we also managed to get in a paddle on the canoe! Of course, we hit the new farmers market in town, bought some locally made wine and had a beer on a patio and watched the world go by. Not a hugely taxing weekend, but it was fun! Hope everyone is enjoying there summer as much as we are....

Wait until you can laugh at us shivering here in the middle of winter if we decide to stay for ski season!