We were collected at
Denver Airport at 4 pm by good friends George and Phyllis and driven for 5
hours through the lovely countryside to their log cabin high above the Conejos
Canyon in Colorado. We arrived at the
bottom of a hill in the canyon in the dark and transferred all luggage and
passengers into a 4 x 4 to transcend the hill.
It was dark and it was interesting bumping and jiggling our way up the ‘road’
to their cabin in the woods. Having
arrived, we transferred everything again into the cabin and began to settle in.
Our room was the entire ‘bottom’
floor of the cabin with floor the ceiling windows along one side, George’s workshop
[the envy of Malcolm] at one end, a fireplace and lounge in the middle and at
the end we pulled down a bed from the wall and began creating our bedroom for
the week. We had a lovely bedside table
in the form of a log from one of their aspen trees on which stood our lamp and
which we adorned with our alarm clock.
We had our own sink and ‘restroom’ under the stairs and for the first
time during our tour were able to unload all our clothes and other bits and
pieces from our long suffering luggage.
In the morning we awoke
early to the natural sunlight coming through the huge windows and by the time
we had ascended the stairs to the ‘ground’ floor we were both gasping for
breath, not realising we were situated at about 9,930 ft above sea level! All week we felt a little whoosy and
breathless but this did not detract from our stay.
The next few days
consisted of an amazing amount of activity including inter alia, enjoying the company
of George and Phyllis, laughing for England together and exploring the scenery
and cultural attractions of the canyon, motoring to Mese Verde National Park
via Durango and Pagosa Springs; Taos and the lovely world heritage site of a living
pueblo village; The Sand Dunes National Park, Alamosa; and delightful Creede with
its old prospector mine workings [where they are currently shooting parts of
the film The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp as Tonto] and its lovely shops and
art galleries. We met local artist Stephen
Quiller who has his gallery there and is a good friend of George and
Phyllis. We loved all his paintings
[which is unusual for us] and could have enjoyed having any in our home.
We loved sitting on the
balcony of the log cabin and watching Stellar
Blue Jays and Great Beaks feeding
each morning from the bird table, watching out for the local mule deer who came
to the salt lick provided by George and Phyllis, the delightful little
chipmunks who scoured the grounds for pickings from the birds or even climbed
up onto the bird table to help themselves - always being wary in case a bear
visited. Although we had been keen to
spot a Yogi-type in Yosemite we were not too sure about encountering one up there
in the wilds of the woods away from much habitation.
Diana awoke one morning
to the sun streaming through the windows and decided she would look out to see
if the chipmunks were busy searching for their breakfast when she was stopped
short at the sight which greeted her on the window. On closer inspection she realised it was a baby
bear paw print and immediately grabbed the camera to take a photograph. When the windows were inspected later by
Phyllis she drew attention to the muzzle marks made by an adult bear nose on
the patio door and bear fur and further bear paw scrapings on the window; scary;
although we never did see our black bear visitors and quite honestly were not
disappointed.
