TravelStream™ news feed for member dhjv62a on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/dhjv62a en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:29:03 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1246713411/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1246713411/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1246713411/tpod.html Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:29:03 -0400 Susan & Sam's Great Adventure

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Durango, Colorado, United States

Here we are sleeping in a tent in San Juan National Forrest.

Coming back from Durango on Tuesday night we saw a bobcat running across the road, amazing!

I heard owls calling and answering around 1am. There was a full moon. We were told bears frequent the eastern part of the park by Doug the park ranger responsible for the camp grounds. So far, we haven't seen any.

Breakfast cooked on an open fire was pretty good. Each campsite has a fire pit. I collected fallen firewood and built a fire. Go figure. Camping wasn't as bad as I thought.

We whitewater rafted today in the Animas river with Southwest Whitewater. Our guide was Lou. Lou said he graduated from college in IL about a year ago and decided to see the US southwest given that jobs out of college are pretty much non-existent. He guides rafts in the summer and ski patrols in the winter.

No pictures from the raft. Anything lost in the river becomes property of the river. Neither of us took any chances. The water was tamer than we thought. Still the 2 mile river trip was fun with some class 2 & 3 rapids.

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Branford, Connecticut, United States

I believe Dorothy said it best in the Wizard of OZ, "There's no place like home!"

Giovanni and Sophia, our cats, were very happy to see us.

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Avon, Colorado, United States

We went to the rodeo and sat through some very interesting events.

Mutton Bustin' caught our attention. Twenty 4 - 5 year olds were volunteered by their parents to ride sheep bareback.

The little kids were given helmets, stuck on the back of a full sized sheep and then released from a gate.

One girl from San Francisco held on for dear life for about 10 seconds.

All of the kids, boys and girls, were crying when they were picked up from the arena floor by a rodeo clown or one of the adult supervising the event.

We're too litigious in the east to have an event like this one.

Other events that night included the donkey race. Three teams of three people from the crowd volunteered to ride/pull/push a donkey around a course. We learned that you need to pull the donkey's tail in the direction you want to go to keep them moving. I was amazed that no one was kicked.

One cowboy rode a bucking bronco. He stayed on for the required time.

The barrel racing event had women racing around three barrels for the best time. The fastest was 15 seconds. Two young girls, 10 & 6 years old, raced around the course on full sized horses. Amazing.

Bull riding came last. Those cowboys really earn whatever money they make.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248650341/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248650341/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248650341/tpod.html Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:16:44 -0400 Susan & Sam's Great Adventure

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Vail, Colorado, United States

We hiked up to the top of Vail pass.

Very beautiful and tiring. The hike took over 4 hours up and back in rarefied air.

There were many different types of wild flowers along the trail. At the top of the pass, a hummingbird visited the red Indian paintbrush flowers.

Two gray jays tried mooching for food along the trail.

We had to walk across snow near the top of the pass to get to the summit.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248702970/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248702970/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248702970/tpod.html Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:12:37 -0400 Susan & Sam's Great Adventure

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Boulder, Colorado, United States

For some reason unknown to both Susan and me, we booked a red eye12:45am flight home from Denver to Philadelphia early Sunday morning.

We started the 25th by packing up in Avon, stuffing our Kia Forte with all of our stuff, and then driving to Boulder, CO to walk around some.

The ride through mountains we were seeing for the first time was spectacular.

Somewhere along the way a town appeared that was full of casinos. Apparently, it's a CO sanctioned gambling town.

Finally, we arrived in Boulder a real granola cruncher college town and walked the 'scene' on the Pearl Street mall. There were jugglers, street musicians of all types including digeri do players, mimes, panhandlers (each with a different story), many tourists like us, and all manner of people.

We drove to Westminster, CO to hang out with Susan's long time friend Mary. Mary and Jeff were in town for a Western Swing dance competition.

They took us to the Lindy Hop portion of the competition to watch some of the dancers in the Westin where the competition was being held.

Then we drove to the airport to start the long journey home.



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248648234/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248648234/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248648234/tpod.html Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:49:03 -0400 Susan & Sam's Great Adventure

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Avon, Colorado, United States

We were dropped near the top of Vail pass on bicycles and pedaled in to Lion's Head west of Vail. We pedaled/coasted for about 2 hours (mostly down hill). A marmot was watching another biker when we stopped.

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Taos, New Mexico, United States

We visited the 1000+ year old Navajo Pueblo belonging to the red willow tribe. The day was sunny and very hot with sporadic clouds in the sky. During our visit just after the tour, we were hit by the most powerful thunderstorm that dropped lots of water, extreme lightning, thunder and pea sized hail. Attached are some of the pictures of Taos and the Enchanted Circle drive.
We stayed the night in Chama, NM home of the Cumbres & Toltec steam railway.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248272514/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248272514/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248272514/tpod.html Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:30:13 -0400 Susan & Sam's Great Adventure

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Avon, Colorado, United States

Up the mountain today on a ski lift in Beaver Creek. The air was very clean and the views spectacular.

At night, we went to a free concert at Betty Ford park in the Gerald Ford pavilion. The tribute group, Queen Nation, was pretty good in their recreation of the original, Queen. They used the house PA that was insufficient for the level of music played. They were very, very, very loud.



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248198807/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248198807/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248198807/tpod.html Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:15:02 -0400 Susan & Sam's Great Adventure

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Leadville, Colorado, United States

We drove scenic route 24 from Vail to Leadville for the day and walked around the old downtown.

Leadville has a 2.5 hour scenic train ride that we decided to take. The train ride included a stop to look at wild flowers. Susan de-trained to look at the flowers and I continued on a couple of miles to the molybdenum mine on Climax Mountain.

We went from 10,200 feet to over 11,200 feet on the 11 mile ride.

Leadville is the highest incorporated municipality in the US.

I talked to two brothers staying at the Christie Lodge in Avon, CO where we're spending the week about golf in Leadville. The ball really flies at the highest golf course in the US.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248048435/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248048435/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dhjv62a/1/1248048435/tpod.html Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:29:58 -0400 Susan & Sam's Great Adventure

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Cody, Wyoming, United States

We passed through Cody, WY on the way to Lander, WY.

Cody is a very historic western city that is home to the Wild Bill Cody museum.

Here are some of our pictures of the drive.

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