Adventures in Trumpland

The morning after the election I woke up bright and early so I could get the dogs out before hitting the road for Trumpland, ie rural Colorado.  Because Colorado may be blue now (it was purple when I moved here in 1990) but once you get about an hour or so west of Denver on US285 you start seeing the Trump signs.  And if you unwittingly stop in the mountain town of Bailey because the internets told you there was a coffee shop there and you were expecting a breve latte at said 'coffee shop' you'll be sorely disappointed.  In fact if you even try asking for a latte they'll look at you like you just pulled down your pants and took a big dump in the middle of the grubby cafe.  And you get to wait 25 minutes for a simple cheese, egg, potato breakfast burrito while an old guy with a long grey beard and a limp is positively giddy about the election.  'His first 100 days in office he's going to get rid of Obamacare and lower taxes and fix the economy'.  And if you're me you don't know if you should burst out laughing or crying.  Because you're not sure how a racist, misogynistic, ignorant, bellowing orangutan stuffing the White House full of white supremacists and Goldman Sachs vampires is going to be good for anybody except racist misogynist billionaires  but you're already hoping no bodily fluids end up in your breakfast burrito because of the snooty coffee request so I kept my mouth shut.

Anyway, I was on my way to Cortez/Mancos/Dolores to meet a realtor and look at houses mostly because Jonny and I had had our eyes on this little ranch that came on the market, went under contract, came back on the market, went back under contract and we made a deal that if it came back on the market a third time it was fate and we had to go see it. And it came back on the market so off I went.  On my lonesome because we still have Lola and she still can't travel.  So I packed up the GoPro and camera and braved the 7 hour journey to Trumpland.  Because for the last 6 of the 7 hours I didn't see a single Hilary sign.  Though to be fair I didn't see asstons of Trump signs either but they were the only signs I saw.  At one point I saw a small Hillary sticker on a lamp post in Mancos and I though maybe there was a glimmer of hope but it turned out it actually said, 'Jail Hillary'.  Not that I'm a Hillary fan but I'm for sure a not-racist, misogynist, fascist bellowing sex offender orangutan fan.  Between a rock and an impossible to even contemplate place.

But that area, it's so beautiful.  I left super early Wednesday morning so I could get to Phil's World in time to meet a friend who'd just closed on a place in Cortez right before we met.  We only had time for a 1 1/4 hour ride before dusk but it was magic.

Then I went to see his new house and then went for Indian food and by the time I'd driven back to the motel in Mancos and talked to Jonny I was too tired for anything else so I missed all the Not Fun Election stuff on Facebook and everywhere else for that matter.  The next two days were solidly full of looking at houses and hiking and more biking and then another full day of driving to get home and I know you're probably thinking how can I enjoy myself during all the horrorshow  of End of Days and all and you're sort of right.  Except here's the thing.  We can't go around in a state of fear with the expectation that the sky is falling because then that's exactly what will happen.  The fear puts us in a sort of hypnosis and all the bad suggestions of the internets panic of End of Days get in and we accept that racism, fascism, bigotry, sexism, white supremacists in the White House is now the new normal.  And we can't let that happen.  We have to be strong and adopt the attitude that No This Bullshit Will Not Stand.  There have already been post-election racist and anti-LGBT attacks in Denver and we can't let this happen, we can't let this become the new normal, we can't accept that this is normal.  We have to have each others' backs.  Zero tolerance of this bullshit.  Or next thing we know Trump is firing up the ovens and I don't really care how alarmist that sounds because we should be alarmed.  But not wallowing in fear and sadness alarmed.  Strong and thinking What Are We Gonna Do Now alarmed.  And heck yeah I'm gonna ride my bike in the woods because that's when I do my best thinking.  And if it comes to it and the world is going down in flames, well, I may as well enjoy what's left of it.

Phew.  So the ranch we had our eye on was not as perfect in person which happens more often than not in real estate.  The land was too sloping and the house was smaller than advertised and not laid out all that great.  Plus a west facing exposure meant no morning sun when you want it and hot blasting afternoon sun when you don't.  I saw a bunch more houses, maybe a dozen or so in all, and only 2 were reasonable possibilities and only one of those was practical.  The other was a super nice house but 5 minutes on a hilly dirt road to get down to the main road which doesn't sound that bad but was a bit more excitement than what we're looking for.  Plus the house was super fancy, way more fancy than we need.  Paying for fancy is not a good value because after a month or two you don't notice the fancy but you do notice the drive down the hilly dirt road, especially in the winter.  The other house was a great location and perfect size house in good condition but not super fancy or expensive.  Land was sloping though and I'd like some flat land for an agility/dog yard.  Wasn't so sloping though that I couldn't maybe pay to have some of it leveled and the house was cheap enough.  But a long driveway and something I hadn't thought about rural living is the cost of maintaining private dirt roads.  I'd done the math on the snow removal but hadn't thought about the expense and hassle of general maintenance.  It's on the 'maybe' list anyway.  We're in no hurry, trying to move several mountain passes away in the winter is not a good plan.  But maybe by spring the right house comes up and Google opens their Boulder office so we sell our house quickly and hopefully the Goldman Sachs vampires haven't totally pillaged what's left of the economy by then.

After looking at houses on Thursday I had some daylight left and the realtor suggested the Chicken Creek Cross Country Ski Area for a hike.  It didn't disappoint.  Though I didn't have a trail map and there were so many trails branching off of trails that I got a bit turned around but I found my way out before dark.

On Friday the realtor couldn't meet until the afternoon so I took advantage of the time to myself and rode Bean Canyon up in the Boggy Draw trail system outside of Dolores.  I was out there 2 1/2 hours or so and saw 2 women riding with a dog.  That was it.  When I got back to the parking lot there were a couple of guys unloading their bikes but they were going on a different trail.  They'd come all the way down from Telluride to ride at Boggy Draw, maybe 1 1/2 hour drive or so.  It was beautiful, even in shoulder season.

On the way home I stopped at a friend's place outside of Durango.  She had come down with me on my trip last Jan. and when she and her husband went back a couple months later they bought a house.  It was a fixer upper and they were still in the throes of fixing it up.  They'd had to re-do the septic too and had drainage issues with the land sloping towards the house.  It all looked a bit overwhelming.  I'm hoping we don't end up with those types of issues but who knows.  It'll be an adventure anyway.

Canyons of the Ancients

This place was so amazing and I'd only heard of it a month ago when I was talking to a local about trails.  And only a half hour drive from Cortez.

T-shirt weather in February!

The trail allows hiking, dogs, mountain bikes and unfortunately drilling.  Site of the McElmo Dome which holds asstons of CO2 which apparently is a valuable commodity to the oil and gas industry.  Who knew?  Supposedly Kinder Morgan, the company doing the drilling, has scaled back a significant amount of their operations due to the tanking of the oil and gas industry at the moment.  And no fracking has occured in all of Montezuma County between 2013-2015 and only one well in 2012.  But that could all change.  I'm anxious to see how this turns out and of course it will impact whether we move to the area or not.  Anyway, we couldn't see or hear any impacts from the drilling, if any was even going on.

The trail was beautiful.  My only regret is that we only went a mile or two up, had to leave Lola in the car because it was too steep for her and didn't want to leave her for too long.

The red and white rock formations reminded me of Sedona.

Maybe a cave dwelling?

So much awesomeness.  Can't wait to go back when I can explore a bit further.  Tough traveling with the dogs though, especially when Lola can go very far.  But the area is huge and if we move here there will be plenty to explore.

It's Where You Live

The weekend before last Jonny and I took an unplanned last minute trip down to the Southwest part of the state to check out Dolores, Cortez and Mancos.  I'd been down a month ago but this was his first time and my first chance to see the area in greater detail.  When I went down with my friend last month we only spent a half day in the area because our trip got cut short by an incoming snowstorm.  This time we had 2 full days.

We had the dogs with us which limited our choices of places to stay but I found a cool little 'Casita' in Mancos on VRBO for a reasonable price.  It turned out to be awesome, everything was brand new, we were only the third group of people to stay there.  We had a beautiful view of Mesa Verde National Park from our deck.

Was so awesome waking up to that every morning.  The Casita was on 10 acres so it was very peaceful and private.  There was a main house and a little bit of issue having to navigate the owners' dogs at first but it worked out fine in the end.  We even had a friendly cat come visit us at night.  I miss having a cat but it's too hard to keep the dogs from snacking out of a litter box and that grosses me out to no end.  And OMG the stars at night!!!  So spectacular.

Hanging out in the Casita

Mancos, Dolores and Cortez are about 15-20 minutes from each other and form a triangle of sorts around a rural piece of land, some of it flat, some of it hilly.  I had my eye on a 35 acre piece of land with a 'cabin' and the 2 parcels of 35 acres on either side for sale as a whole if you want.  Imagine having 100 acres all to yourself!  And for significantly cheaper than I can sell my Boulder shack.  But the drive to get there had a short but steep hill on a dirt road and some twisty bits.  Just a 10-15 minute drive from the main highway and mostly not too bad but still not something we want to have to do on a daily basis, especially in winter.  Plus the ugly power lines at the boundary of the property.  Lots of other possibilities in the area though.  And while driving around the dirt roads I spotted this:

And there was a sign up at the fairgrounds saying there was an agility trial that weekend put on by Vision Agility.  Some internet searching reveals that this is a commercial operation but unfortunately for me it's NADAC style/distance handling.  Not my cup of tea.  But nice to know there are fellow agility enthusiasts in them thar hills.

We checked out some houses that were for sale to get an idea of what we could afford and there were plenty of options, the biggest issue being the size of the places.  So huge.  Like this:

And 7 acres of land with water rights.  Plus super nice on the inside.  But sheesh, so big, 2400 square feet.  The thought of heating such a monstrosity and taking care of it is overwhelming, our current house is about 1100 square feet.  But so tempting with views like this:

And only 10 minutes from the grocery store, 20 minutes from trails at Boggy Draw, 6 minutes to Phil's World which is an amazing mountain bike mecca of awesomeness.  All easy driving.  Plus a pond on the property for dog swimming and a reservoir just down the road.

Boggy Draw

I know, what am I still doing here in Boulder?  The woman I traveled with last month went back to Durango with her husband 2 weeks ago and came home with a house.  Jonny and I joked that we had to resist the temptation to do the same.  But we need to work out the financials of how we'll survive there first and it seems real estate prices are continuing to rise here in Boulder and fall over there so it makes sense to wait things out a bit. 

And there are concerns - oil and drilling/fracking in the area and water rights are my main concerns.  I talked to a friend who lives near Durango and she stressed the importance of hiring a real estate lawyer who's also an expert in water and mineral rights.  There's a downturn in oil at the moment (which is probably why real estate prices are falling over there) and a contraction in oil operations for now but who knows what the future holds and the BLM is trying to open up almost all our public land to drilling/fracking and this includes areas next to Mesa Verde National Park and Phil's World.  So there are concerns and I want to see how these issues play out in the next year.

Abandoned Sinclair station on Hwy 160 between Mesa Verde and Mancos. 

On the other hand, Weld County which is next to Boulder County has by far the most amount of fracking and drilling in the whole state and Boulder has its own brown cloud so whatever is going on over there is probably not nearly as bad as here.

I've got a bunch more photos from Mesa Verde and Canyon of the Ancients but I'll do another post for those.

Snowtastic

I think I've had more snow adventures in the past week and half than I have in the past 3 years.  I suppose it's due more to happenstance than anything, ie I've had various friends up for various adventures in the snow.

First was a little trip up to Eldora (about 40 minutes drive up into the high country) for some snow shoeing at Jenny Creek Trail.  I ended up hiking in Yax Trax because the trail was compacted enough that snowshoes were overkill.  Though I did end up post holing up to my knee when I wasn't paying attention and stepped into the uncompacted powder at the side of the trail.

A few days later was a trip to Devils Thumb which is a nordic ski area about 2 hours away, just past Winter Park.  I ended up skiing for 2 1/4 hours at around 8700' elevation.  This amounted to a measly 6.1 miles and I could barely move afterwards.  Have only skied once so far this winter on a nearly flat course in North Boulder Park for 45 minutes.  But we'd driven all that way and were having such fun, what's a few days of being sore?  It was a beautiful day, low 20's but sunny and didn't feel cold at all.  Snow was a bit icy for me in places but mostly not a problem.

Devil's Thumb Ski Area

The drive over Berthoud Pass

A spectacular day overall, seized up hamstrings notwithstanding.


Then a couple days later I left for a whirlwind tour of Durango/Cortez/Dolores.  It's an area that I'm interested in possibly moving to so we spent the time mostly driving through potential neighborhoods though we did make time for a short 1 hour fat biking adventure.  It was only a 3 day trip cut short by an approaching snowstorm (10"-20" predicted for Cortez area) though 3 days of driving is plenty for me (7 1/2 hours of driving to get to Cortez).

We spent the first night in Durango where they were having some 80's themed winter festival.  I so wish I hadn't been so tired because I would have loved to attend the 80's Drag Strip competition.  We saw some of the contestants in the street while looking for a place for dinner but I didn't know what it was about until the next day.  Plus being so tired, I was in my jammies before the competition even started.

Downtown Durango

Last summer Jonny and I made a trip to Pagosa Springs and Durango and our impression of Durango was that it was crowded, built-up and expensive and my impression this time around wasn't much different.  Though to be fair the festival may have lured more people than normal to town but it seemed most folks were there to ski Purgatory, a resort about 30 mins. or so from Durango.  Still it was interesting to check out some different areas and confirm that this probably won't be our final destination.

Next it was on to Dolores, a place I've never been.  The main attraction here is a trail system called Boggy Draw as well as a huge reservoir that allows for open water swimming in summer.  We rented fat bikes in Cortez and checked out the groomed fat bike trails in Boggy Draw.

So Much Fun

There were a couple deer legs along the trail but I didn't see any kitties.

I've got some Go Pro video footage but that'll have to wait for another day.  Still need to process it.  I'm also going to put together a video of the area from my dashboard camera.  Sometime.  Eventually.

Dolores is a small, unassuming little town.  The Boggy Draw trails are at the top of the cliffs, about 3 miles drive from town.

It's about 10 minutes or so from Cortez which is larger and has pretty much everything we need including public indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a groovy bike store and a farmer's market in the summer.  Horses, goats, chickens, donkeys, is it too late to start a hobby farm in your 50's?  And of course a dog agility field of my very own.

There's a lot of affordable housing between Dolores and Cortez.  We could easily afford 5-10 acres if not more.

The best part though is the access to so many awesome areas within an hour or two including Lizard Head Wilderness area and Telluride and a bunch of places in Utah and even Durango is just 50-60 minutes away.  I ran into a guy in the parking lot who was also finishing up his fat bike ride and it turned out he was a member of the cycling group that grooms the trail as well as a lifelong resident of Dolores.  He told me about so many biking and skiing trails.  SO many.  We could easily spend the rest of our lives exploring.  And the San Juans!  They are spectacular.  If I had to choose a favorite Colorado mountain range it would be the San Juans.

The view from the outskirts of Cortez.  Mesa Verde National Park is behind those cliffs.

On our drive home we stopped in Mancos, a little artist-ey sort of town about 10 minutes from Cortez.  Probably too small for us and too far from trails but a neat little place to visit and not totally off our list yet.  And they had some kind of organic food grocery store that looked promising.

Outside the coffee shop in Mancos

Sunrise in Mancos

Overall a lot of good info. gleaned from a short little trip.  The guy from Dolores put my mind at ease about a lot of questions I had about water, fracking, trails, etc.  Of course we'll need a few more trips out there but it was good to see these places in winter.  Will be interesting to see them again in summer but so far I'm feeling encouraged.

Then yesterday was yet another skiing adventure.  We had 15"-16" of snow in North Boulder and after an asston of shoveling I treated myself to 1 1/2 hours at North Boulder Park.  Where there were Too Many People and I was longing for the serenity of Boggy Draw.

But again, not complaining.  Was happy to be able to ski less than 10 minutes from my house.  All the shoveling and skiing jacked up my neck though.  Feels better today but had to skip swimming at masters.  Hopefully will be better for Friday's masters workout.  Plus it would be nice if I could turn my head to the left.