Dan was really slow waking up this morning so I lay in bed catching up on my blogs while he snored. By 9am, I was itching to get going and was thinking about creeping off in my van to start the day and leave a note or something, but he rose. We spent all of last night looking at the cliffs of Mesa Verde so we figured we’d stop in for a look. After a quick breakfast of cereal, we broke camp. But not quite, Dan waved at me to stop as I drove away. He had a flat battery thanks to leaving his keys in the ignition all night. I wasn’t worried since we had four batteries between us but we didn’t have to use any of them, just Dan’s jumper battery pack which worked first go. The Ford didn’t want to stay running but we convinced her in the end.
Happy with another camp, we didn’t drive very far until we were at Mesa Verda National Park. It was a blaze with cars and overweight tourists, not something I expected for a Wednesday mid-morning but I put that down to the July 4th holiday. We stopped at the visitor’s centre and walked through the masses to get some information. Turns out to see most of the cliff dwellings, you need to book and pay for a tour and of course they were booked out until late afternoon, not that we were really interested in paying the $20 fee for them. Seeking a park map, I found an available volunteer and asked him for some advice on what we could do solo and for free. An older guy, he jumped into his spiel, pointing out everything on the map. He was very adamant about the time it would take for us to do certain things, estimating an hour at each spot, though I’m not sure how he thinks that hour would be filled. I think if you walked up to this guy and asked for a burger and fries, he would give you the same speech no matter what.
Outside the visitor’s centre, we found a water spigot so filled up our containers before leaving my car and piling into Dan’s for our tour of the park. At the park entrance, I showed my parks pass with my ID to the cheery park ranger and he had us both in fits of laughter as we drove away. I can’t possibly put his accent in words, but I’ll do my best. “Awww-stray-leee-yeah?! I’m impressed!” He then rambled on something about Australia, then held both his hands up making a happy face with a big “Y’all have a great time! Yeee-hew-hew!” It was brilliant.
We drove up the scenic road to the top of the peaks and past the huge lodge for the rich and famous. We were only exploring one half of the park that had the most cliff dwellings. It took us about twenty minutes (not the hour the visitor’s centre guy predicted) to get to the end of the road and to the museum. The carpark here was full too. While Dan went to the bathroom, me and Cleo sat outside and people watched, noticing that most people were older or had families and were in no state to be doing any hiking.
We started our grande Mesa Verde explore at the Spruce Tree House. One of the self-guided cliff dwellings, it was closed due to rock fall so we just joined the masses at the lookout above for a quick photo. Next, we drove to Cliff Palace, the biggest cliff dwelling in North America. This was one of the ones you had to pay for so we knew we wouldn’t be going any further than the lookout at the top. Again, there were tonnes of people, most of them waiting for their tour. The sign at the entrance said no pets, but we interpreted that as no pets down near the cliff dwellings so Cleo came with us. When we saw a ranger on the lookout platform getting ready to lead to a tour, we didn’t push our luck, taking it in turns to go down for a look. The dwellings were massive, nested right underneath a huge cave roof, some of the buildings were two or three storeys. Having been built between 1100 and 1200, it all looked a bit new thanks to the restoration by the park service, but it gave us the right idea. I was much more impressed with the cliff dwellings in New Mexico since you could walk through them and talk to the rangers as much as you wanted, instead of this shit show of booking a tour and going down in a group. We heard the ranger start her tour and both cringed. It was like she was talking to a group of school children, asking everyone to tell her the possible dangers they were likely to encountered on their tour today. Sigh.
We left to find the last dwelling. On the way out, Dan told me about a woman who had seen Cleo with him near the lookout and approached him saying, “Ummm. Did you see the sign about no pets?” clearly implying that he should immediately leave, but he just said, “No, no I didn’t” and she paused a moment, then said, “Well, just so you know!” Everyone has to be a hero apparently.
Anyway, we drove on to see Balcony House which was the first nearly empty carpark we’d seen. We understood why soon enough because the trail down to the house was closed and the dwelling sat right beneath where we stood. Over it, we were ready to drive out. We stopped once more at a lookout to spot a tiny dwelling right a the top of the canyon and couldn’t believe how anyone could live there.
We drove out of Mesa Verde the way we’d come, me straddling the backwards passenger seat in Dan’s car while Cleo slid around in the living room. The view was pretty and the storm clouds that were gathering over the valley impressive. Back at the bottom, I used the bathroom in the visitor’s centre and picked up my car. From here, we were heading to Durango. I was nervous about my car as we drove at about 7,000 feet through a bunch of hills. I was hardly putting more than 25% throttle on for fear of the engine coughing, but I had no issues.
Before leaving Mesa Verde, we’d decided that since it was Wednesday, there was a good chance we’d be able to find cheap wings for lunch (Wing Wednesday) and so we resolved to do some Yelp’ing once we got into town. I was leading and soon found out that I’d taken the wrong turn and taken us away from Durango. I looked for my first opportunity to turn around and this is where the rest of our day was dictated. I pulled in to Santa Rita park and found that it sat right next to a flowing river. We’d been looking for a river to cool off in so this was perfect. We parked illegally right down by the water and before contemplating lunch, we decided we’d take a dip. There were a few kids in the shallows of the river already and they were very vocal about how cold it was. That didn’t bother us much, we walked in a few meters and dunked our heads under the strong flow of water. It was Cleo’s turn after that to cool off which she enjoyed after the fact.
Once we were thoroughly refreshed, I saw a sign by the river that explained all the places you could launch a water craft and travel down the river. In the time we were at the park, we also saw a bunch of rafters go by so it was obviously a popular thing to do. Only a few days ago I’d been telling Dan how I’d never done any sort of tubing or kayaking down a river and it seemed like this was a perfect opportunity! We consulted the map a bit closed and we were soon making plans of how we could buy a couple of cheap tubes and make it happen. But first things first, it was lunch time.
After a few minutes of Yelp’ing, Dan found a brewery that was dog friendly and on the way to the local Walmart where we planned to invest in our tubes. He lead the way to Ska Brewery which was in an industrial area but had a sweet outdoor area. We pondered a while whether to get wings or a pizza since there weren’t any specials but we went with pizza in the end. I left Dan with the outdoor barman to get beers while I went inside to order food. When I came out, he was chatting with the barman and his only other customer. Just as I got there, the customer, Ben, was offering Dan his serving of wings that he’d barely touched. A stranger’s kindness, Dan had just been telling the barman that we couldn’t decide on the wings and this guy graciously offered us his! They were hardly cold too! We finished the wings just as the pizza was brought out and both were delicious. The beers were pretty bloody good too!
Lunch done, we drove down to Walmart in search for tubes. We were not disappointed, these guys were capitalising on the season with mountains of tubes and water sport accessories. We went for the cheapest but also most suitable option, a hardy looking tube with mesh in the bottom and a headrest, all for $12. We grabbed a couple other things on the way out, including a replacement water container for me which I’d been missing since we broke the last one in Mexico. Now all we had to do was tube down the river. After consulting the map and noticing there were a couple of caution spots on the first five miles, we opted to do the last three miles of the river as a starter. We’d read on the sign that tubing is only recommended when the river is flowing at 500 cfs. I’d looked it up and found it was currently at over twice that, 1200 cfs. But whatever!
The last river access point was right by the Walmart so we drove over and dropped my car. I packed what I needed and jumped into Dan’s car. We went back to Santa Rita park and prepared to tube! I’d brought by 12V air pump which was essential for pumping up the tubes. There’d have been much fainting if we’d tried to blow them up with our lungs. After replacing Dan’s cigarette lighter fuse (which I’d busted a few days ago), it was a perfect system. Within minutes, we had two inflated tubes. We packed a bag with some water, beer, trail mix, our keys and my phone in a waterproof case. Dan had Cleo in tow and her blue bed material as protection for the tube from her claws and we were set.
We had an audience at the launch spot which didn’t help because we really weren’t sure if this was going to work. Dan tied our tubes together with the rope that came with them so that we were a couple of meters apart. We figured this would be best so that he could hold on to Cleo and I could help if (and when) she freaked out. The family on the banks of the river wished us luck as we launched our crafts, Dan holding on tightly to Cleo. The current was pretty quick, but gentle to start with. We both got comfortable in our tubes and couldn’t wipe the smiles off our faces. Only a couple of hours ago I’d taken a wrong turn and now here we were tubing down a river!
Cleo was happy enough being held by Dan, but that was only in the smooth bits. There were a few sections of gentle rapids, but it was enough to rock the tubes front to back and side to side, violently at times. We laughed at every big wave we went over, enjoying the experience. The water was freezing but the sun was still keeping us warm. When the storm clouds came over, we thought that this could turn out to be a bad idea, but we didn’t even feel the cold when the sun wasn’t warming us anymore.
There were no serious rapids, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. Despite the scratches Dan copped all up his arm and torso from Cleo freaking out, she was mostly docile and resigned to being in a tube with her man. The mountains formed a beautiful view from the river and we were surrounded by different shades of green thanks to the healthy grass and trees that lined the banks of the Animas River.
It was all over before it began when we passed under a huge concrete bridge that indicated our stop. We paddled hard to get over to the bank, only just making it to the boat ramp, just ahead of a couple on double hull raft boat that had been catching us. We stayed out of their way as I got out of my tube and held on to Dan’s tube so he could get Cleo safely out and on to land. She was a happy doggy to be back on dry land and hid in the bushes the next time Dan approached her, not at all interested in repeating the ordeal. Laughing and smiling, incredulous that we’d just tubed down the Animas river, which we hadn’t even heard of or known about before this afternoon. The whole three miles had taken us only an hour, the current had been fast. On top of that, it started to flick with rain just as we got out of the river so our timing couldn’t have been more perfect, especially considering we’d planned nothing.
Back at my car, she was still parked safely where I’d left her, we deflated the tubes, curled them up and piled them onto the floor along with our wet stuff and a wet dog. Dan got in and we drove back to Santa Rita park to get his car. It was 6pm by now and we were ready for camp. There were no freecampsites.net options near Durango and we were keen to stay in the area to tube again tomorrow so we winged it. Using Google satellite, I found a lake nearby and Dan was keen to try it so he followed me. It was only five minutes out of town, but the dirt roads leading down to Nighthorse Lake were closed with big obvious signs. Hmmm. Not to worry, another peruse of Google satellite showed a dirt road right across the highway. Me leading the way again, we bumbled across the highway and found the dirt road. It was hardly used and had a big ditch between the wheel tracks, but it was manageable. We found a small area around a tree that had a flat spot so pulled in. We were on the top of a hill so had a great view of the lake behind us. The road kept going so I went on to do some recon while Dan guarded camp. The road was sketchier than the first bit and the end of the road had a site that wasn’t flat at all. I drove back and Dan levelled his van. We had a sweet camp for the night.
After I parked my car, I went to the back door and lo and behold it would not open. We’d fixed it when it broke in Flagstaff but obviously our fix had expired. Shit. It was going to be hard to fix it when I couldn’t even get the door open. After fiddling with the exposed screw we’d put in from the door handle side, we got the bloody thing open. I did something stupid then and thought it might have been the electronic lock that was broken so I pressed the button a couple of times then closed the door. Dan almost screamed he couldn’t believe I’d just done that. Of course it had nothing to do with the locking system, we couldn’t get it open again. It took a bit more fiddling but we got it open again. I took the access cover off and we inspected the damage. Our screw had come loose and we couldn’t tighten it enough to remain fastened. That’s obviously why the original design was a rivet and not a screw.
Fixing my door was fast becoming our ritual campsite activity before dinner. We spent a good hour fucking around with this thing, scrounging through both our toolboxes to find a bolt, washers and nut that fit through the hole to replace the screw. Every time we tried something different of course the spring would come off and we’d have to get it back on. In the end, it took all four of our hands, a screwdriver, pointy nose pliers, a socket, a bolt, two nuts and more than just a dab of loctite to put the stupid thing back together. Dan used his magic hands to do the last little adjustments, then we left it alone for the loctite to set and harden everything into place (hopefully). You just have to last a couple more months Astro!
Now that it was relaxing time, I called Mum for her birthday and had a nice long chat as I walked over the hill to admire the sun setting over the lake behind the storm clouds. Cleo ran around the bushes keeping me company as I walked. During my explore, I found a few very old pallets lying in the grass so I dragged one back to camp to use for firewood. Dan was happy to see it. After talking to Mum I was very excited to be going home in a couple of months. Travelling has been and is such a wonderful experience but I’ve been away from loved ones for too long and can’t wait to be back with my Mummy and Daddy.
I took Dan up the hill to see the view I’d just enjoyed then with the sun properly going down, he got the fire going. It was windy and the smoke changed directions every five minutes so it was a hard to manage but still worth it, even though it wasn’t that cold. We listened to a Startalk podcast for a while, then switched to music and talking about the podcast. Neither of us were very hungry for dinner thanks to our big lunch, but near bed time we eventually caved and I made a couple of cheese and avocado quesadillas which we toasted over the coals of the fire. Perfect late night snack. As we sat around the fire, it was Dan’s turn to spot a satellite crossing the sky. Seconds after he pointed it out, we were both looking at the sky when a huge shooting star fell vertically from where it was, leaving a golden trail behind it. It had lasted a few good seconds!
We doused the fire thoroughly with water and dirt before bed since we were right on the edge of a forest. Dan moved the van before we crept in since it had been directly in the path of the fire and it was smoking excessively thanks to the dousing so we parked it in some clear air. Another night with the moon shining directly into the van.