Creep

“Whatever makes you happy

Whatever you want

You’re so fuckin’ special

I wish I was special”

Radiohead

This has been a rough year for keeping up with the blog for all of us. We very deliberately call our summer travels a trip and not a vacation because some days it is just a lot of work and not a lot of fun. Life continues on as well with all that entails.

In any case, I have a few days worth of updates to write, but I’m going to focus on yesterday and today. Molly wrote a beautiful Facebook post yesterday about our returning to Mancos for the 4th after being here 3 years ago and falling in love. That magic was recaptured for me as well. After an easy morning in Durango we headed to the Mancos Brewery for lunch. We had good food and beer of course, played cards, and enjoyed live music.

From there we headed to one of our neighbors. She had invited the whole neighborhood for a BBQ which gave us a great opportunity to meet many of the people on our street we hadn’t had a chance to yet. There was also plenty more good food and drink!

We stopped home to set up our tents for the night and then headed into Cortez for what some people claim is the 8th best fireworks show in the country. It lived up to all expectations. As we were pulling out of our parking spot I thought about how nice it was that we could go to our own home, even if that did mean camping and mentioned that to the girls. They all strongly disagreed and wished we were heading to a hotel.

Today we had every intention of getting up early to hike. When the alarms went off at 6:45 our sleeping bags must have been too cozy because we didn’t make our way out of our tents until Ellie started yelling about a bug an hour later. We also had to detour to Dolores for coffee, and drive the unanticipatedly long road to the Sharkstooth Trailhead.

For all the time we spend hiking in the mountains and all the time we spend in Mancos it’s always felt wrong to me that we hadn’t yet hiked in the La Plata’s. I’m happy to say that was corrected today. One of the things I most dread about hiking in the mountains is the Forest Service roads that must be traversed to reach the trailheads. I’m terrified that we’re going to blow out a tire on an especially sharp rock or bottom out on an especially tall one. The last mule and a half of today’s drive in was one of the most nerve-wracking drives I’ve made. The road was just barely wider than Fred. I’m pretty sure we scraped downed trees in a couple places. The rocks were huge, the ruts were deep, there were two stream crossings. Somehow, though we made it, finally arriving at the trailhead at 10.

The hike was completely worth the drive. Although it turned out to be one of the busier trails we’ve been on this summer it was perfect. There were beautiful wildflowers, numerous stream crossings, an abounded mine, waterfalls, mountaintop (or at least saddle) views. On the way down I told Molly that I hoped it would be one of our regular spots someday, as long as we have a Jeep.

Back in Cortez tonight we are clean and well fed. We discovered a new local pizza spot, something Cortez has sorely needed. Next time you’re here check out Southwest Pizza, it was as good as any local spot in Chicago! Now, early to bed, these days really are exhausting.