The Hill

You go east of Aztec on Blanco Street and it isn't long before you are on BLM land. Its scrubby country, interlaced with improvised motocross tracks, old matresses, and lots and lots of broken glass. But it is out there, and so often i ride my bike up there or walk the dogs up there and let them get a good run in before coming back to the world of walls, doors, fences. One day i was up there and my cell rang. Great reception up there. It was my brother Steve. He said "So what are you up to," and i said, "well, i'm just taking the dogs for a walk up the hill east of town." "What's that like?" he asks, then adds; "you'll have to post a shot of the view from up there.
Well, i took the shots a month ago or maybe more, but am just now getting around to posting. The panorama-job is not the best, but i'm chalking that up to the lighting conditions. But you get the idea. This is looking west over Aztec and the Animas River valley ( full name: Rio de las Animas Perdidas) SWEET! Mysterious!

Weminuche Wilderness

This is i believe the largest wilderness area in Colorado. It covers a whole lot of the higher elevations of the San Juan Mountains. We were aiming to make a five day trip up there, but could not get a dog sitter for more than 3. See, Willie (pictured above) is about 2 and real full of energy. Cassidy (pictured in an earlier entry) is about 7, and has a bad hip. So we thought we maybe could leave her at home while we tromped up the mountain.
So the parking lot was at about 8000 feet, just on the east end of Vallecito Reservoir, which in itself is a pretty nice place, if you like man-made mountain lakes. Maybe even if you don't. I really dug the clusters of cabins, saloons, shops, lodges, RVs etc around the lake. It sort of reminded me of the Black Hills in mid-summer. Really rustic and mellow, not all glitzy like some mountain resort areas are prone to become.
We did about ten miles the first day to Emerald Lake. DeAnn and i have not been back- packing since we met, and so this was quite a workout--ten miles up to about 10,000 elevation. But it was worth it. No camping was allowed within a quarter mile of the lake, so we stopped short, pitched tent, and went to the lake to cook dinner. REAL NICE! The next day, it was another five miles up to moon lake at about 11,000 feet. Amazing. I've never seen a mountain lake so remote and high with still lakes more remote an high above, surrounded by peaks even higher.
We made another five miles back to camp, again dog-tired. The next day was just ten miles out to the parking lot--in the rain! It rained for about an hour, straight out of camp. We were getting pretty soggy, when it secided to stop. We stopped, too--had a snack and some lemonade, then headed out again. We'd got off the raincoats and were starting to dry out when rain came again for another hour. But we were dry (if our gearwasn't) by the time we made it to the truck. Then we discovered we had a flat tire. That's the proper way to end a trip. But we were fixed up in a jiffy, and made it into Durango for a very large late lunch. Washed down with a pale ale for me and a brown for DeAnn. AHH-HAAAAH!

Patio

Greeting again. It has been a while. Well, it's been hot out here, but still i continue to work. Here's a shot of our new patio, which i constructed using 'seconds' pavers. This is a great source of cheap materials if you have an actual brick or block factory nearby, ask for seconds. I got 200 square feet of material at half price ($160). WORD! An added benefit. Sand is free around here if you have the gumption to go out to a wash and dig it up yourself and haul it back to town. I gather sand two five-gallon buckets at a time. Actually have really sandy and gravelly soil at home, so i've only had to get 3 loads (6 buckets). I've recently added a little narrow path to connect what you see here to what's left of the old sidewalk. Now i need another load of sand to brush into the top and stabilize it! Will break more concrete and lay more bricks later...