Soleilvacances Les Chaumettes Telluride

This weekend Allison and I hiked to Ice Lake near Silverton, Colorado, for her birthday weekend extravaganza. I had read about the hike to Ice Lake a while back, and then I heard some co-workers raving about it this week. So at the last minute, we decided to go. We left for Durango early Saturday morning, and after a quick stop at the Durango Farmers Market for some coffee and snacks, we secured a campsite at our favorite ...

... of hiking and sight seeing throughout the town, and ate and drank the way a group our size and age would be expected to.

Sorry I don't have more pics of the group, I was mesmerized by the scenery!

Maybe when I get together with them next I'll have some to add.

Hope all are well!

Durango – Ouray – Montrose –
Gunnison

By far mums favourite day on the road.
As we drove north through the San Juan National Forest we saw some of
the prettiest scenery ever. Huge mountais surrounded us as we drove
over narrow passes to be greeted by more beautiful scenes. We then
found Ouray (pronounced you-ray). It is a town named after Native
American (Indian) Chief Ouray who was a peacemaker. It is also the
site of ...

... the Lizard Head Wilderness. Right as we got to the trailhead it started raining, luckily it didn't last long. It was actually kind of nice because it cooled it off a little. The hike to the lake was beautiful- it reminded me so much of hiking in Glacier. Navajo Lake is at 11, 154 ft, and I think there's about 2,000ft elevation gain on the 4 mile hike, but I swear that half the elevation gain is in about 3/4 mile! That part of the hike was ...

... view of mountains in 3 directions. Ethan, Connie and Wade drove up to Yankee Boy Basin (4 wheel drive mountain pass) while Antoinette and Amanda relaxed at the hotel. Nice side trip. Would love to go back and check out some of the other mine sites and tunnels. More pics to come later.

... he told me that if I came back at about 11:10 and the people were gone he would save it for me.  Anyway, instead of going on and on about this, I'll just say that the people decided to stay for another night so we didn't get the spot.  Boo!
  But we tried not to worry about it and set out to enjoy our day in Telluride.  Our first stop was Baked in Telluride-  Silas had been saying for at least a week that he wanted that to be our first stop once we got to town.  It ...

... bolt or come back the next day. We planned on coming back the next day, but didn’t make it. We chose to sleep in our car again as the ground was pretty muddy and we thought it might rain again. This time sleeping in the car was miserable. Neither one of us slept well at all. Darren ended up driving at 4:30am. We decided to head back to Firestone where Darren’s parents live.

... there were some very steep drops on that route! However, he turned out to be as capable as he was frendly, so we all arrived back in Durango safe and sound. We reclaimed our SUVs in the hotel parking lot in Durango, and drove west to Cortez, where we'll be staying at the Days Inn for the next four nights. It was truly a relief to be able to unpack and settle in for a few days!

... my laptop is like my oxygen, without it I don't know how to live. Weather that's true or not, this was definitely a set back. To far to turn around, I thought of the possible options. Buy a generic one at the airport if I could find it, buy one off ebay and have it shipped to Maria's house or have Rochelle expedite my own to Telluride. Option number 3 proved to be most reasonable and cost effective ...

... a little campsite in the canyon of the San Miguel River. The rain stopped. I cooked some bean burritos under the stars and drank red wine. I hung the purple felt bag full of rose petals from the ceiling next to my snowboard, where it still hangs today, as a good luck charm for my adventure, and to remind me of the hippee girl and that sweet moment whenever I'm feeling cold and blue. The next morning I woke up, drove a short distance, and arrived in Telluride.