Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde

Got a hot tip from and RVer about the best pinto beans in the nation... 'Adobe Milling'. Grown at high elevation they have the best flavor of any legume you'll ever meet. He was buying 1500 lbs of them and eats them with every meal.

On top of that, there were cliff dwellings, tarantulas, and ponderas. Not to mention the spectacular Anasazi museum.

The fabled Puebloan, from whom we derive this blog's name, were a people now obscured by time. Their movements and beliefs are collected in fragments. A dim reminder of an exquisite cultural heritage, a golden dawn.

Tarantula!

Silverton, CO

Silverton,

A snowy mountain pass through the San Juans brightened up by a quirky old west town with a good coffee shop and a weird shrine to fallen miners.

Silverton... the gothic cathedral of the Rocky Mountains. Filled with the ghosts of dead miners. Freshly painted boards on homes and the mystical portent of the approaching Colorado Plateau.

We were made welcome by a stop at a coffeshop but on our way out of town, rising up on switchback roads, came down howling winds and snow; winter is coming to Silverton.

Cresting the pass...

Maroon Bells

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls..."

The Maroon Bells, a cold and windy wilderness; October in Colorado yields many surprises. Starting out our hike in the ghost town of Schofield, we discovered a delivery driver who had made a wrong turn down an impassible road and spent the night shivering, stranded.

We hiked our way through golden aspens to a crystal mountain lake. Sam had a metabolic crisis and fell asleep on the trail. Eventually we made it to camp and frigid night air and blistering winds. We awoke to snow and trudged over a mountain pass. Life is tough when you are living off of yogurt covered raisins and spicy trail mix.

Rocky Mountain NP

Rocky Mountain NP,
Crossed the Continental Divide and saw the birth of the Colorado river. Ate fresh peaches while watching herds of grazing elk, which some may call 'demonic'. Thank god we made it out alive!

Wall Drugg

Wall Drugg, The joys of 5 cent coffee and free water are but memories now overshadowed by one deep regret... the decided un-purchase of the perfect enameled bean cooking pot. The fire pit burns low and our pinto beans remain uncooked. At the time, $13 seemed like too large of a dip in our budget. Our travels had just begun. If only we could find such a pot now (believe us, we've looked in every general store between Salt Lake and Sedona). We'd pay double the price! All for a pot of cowboy cooked beans, twiggy-fire style.

Badlandz

Badlands, the name is evocative of a twisted and terrible landscape. To an extent the terrain lives up to its moniker. Badlands? Good Times!