A Dusty Weekend

Oh well, we said, it’s time the van got a deep clean anyway.  

Coming and going Saturday and Sunday they raised dust clouds. Cars drove by from sunrise till midnight many at speed raising dust storms as they rushed to find serene wilderness at the bend of the roughly graded gravel road, number 585 to Ice Lake Trailhead. 

And yet our spot alongside the road was lovely. We kept the windows closed. 

We have discovered the San Juan National Forest just outside Silverton is extremely popular and justifiably so. 

This was one of the last summer weekends families could get out here before school and Fall close in and they took advantage with campers filling campgrounds and roof top tents and ground tents and Jeeps and trucks and mini vans rushing up and down the dirt road. 

An altitude of 9400 feet didn’t slow Rusty down, but for me altitude is something I seen to be slow to adjust to. We’ve been camping above 8,000 feet for a couple of weeks and I still get breathless walking uphill. Not Rusty. 

He seemed to enjoy the views as much as I did. 

I watched the freezing cold water rush through the valley and I wondered about the desert dwellers to the south, hot and dry and dusty. 

I don’t miss motorcycling but what I do miss is the innocence I had before my accident. Riding dirt on a heavy cruiser with no helmet gloves or jacket…. That will hurt. And it’s a shame I can’t see the joy and the carefree ride any more. 

We put our table and chairs among the aspens and  watched the sun cross the cloudless blue sky. 

Almost cloudless. 

At night the cars kept coming and going. I was half inclined to leave and get closer to our appointment in Montrose 90 minutes north in a less dusty place. Layne liked it here so I ignored the cars and ignored the dust and while Layne amused herself cooking I walked Rusty and read and watched the aspens shimmer. 

The weather we have pursued this long hot summer has stayed true to altitude, hot near ninety in the afternoon and cool at night such that we need blankets. Our last morning here at 9400 feet when I turned the engine on at 7 am to start the drive to the Ram dealer in Montrose the dashboard thermometer read 35 degrees. 

Most pull outs along the road were taken, and popular they are for people with cars who could set up their camp tents away from the road. I had to pull out our Go Treads, folding sand planks for use if we get stuck that do double duty as leveling blocks on a slope. They worked perfectly. 

Rusty wanted to walk the road for reasons known only to himself so I took advantage to photograph the washboard created by fast driving in loose soil. It wreaks havoc on vehicle suspension. 

I first met washboard riding a motorcycle in West Africa in 1979 and I was told the way to handle it is to get up to 50 miles an hour and the bone jarring bumps fade away. They do but it takes fearless determination and a long open road to get that fast on this stuff. The local off roaders preferred to bounce their trucks to death. 

I felt fortunate that we had nowhere to go and no deadline to go home. In the evening Rusty would collapse on his bed. As Layne made dinner a slow dusk fell outside accompanied by cooling temperatures, from the back of the van came the sounds of crunching from the slowest eater in the world on his bed. We had salad and some wild creation from the chef, eggplant sort of Parmesan, breakfast for dinner with egg in the hole or a towering impossible burger, the best meatless meat I’ve had and we aren’t vegetarians.

I’ve been hacking along through the history of the Mormons attempting to create an independent nation in the west and the slow moving efforts of the US army to put down the insurrection. They traveled nine miles a day with their ox carts on their way to Utah. And were constantly starving and freezing on their road to suppressing an insurrection on the orders of Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War in 1857. History is packed with irony. 

I look at GANNET2 and once again think how lucky I am. 

Mancos

A small slice of life hidden away in southern Colorado. 

A town of a few thousand people, a pretty historic district and a stream running through it. 

Mancos Valley is devoted to agriculture and, who knew, apples are a famous crop around here. Like everyone else when I hear apple orchards spoken of, my thoughts turn to Washington State and British Columbia just to the north. 

Mancos is named for an early resident of the area, a Spaniard who fell in the river and suffered an injury that led to the amputation of his arm. In Spanish “manco” means “one armed” so Mancos means town of the one armed people. Look it up for yourself but I wouldn’t lie about history no matter how daft it sounds.  

I think of the great good fortune early arrivals had in these places and the permission they gave themselves to name their communities and that’s the best they could come up with? One legged motorcyclist in the one armed town: 

We stopped at the Fenceline Cidery, a lovely outdoor space and Rusty friendly and met this guy Don who started chatting and when I asked what he was ordering told me he liked to mix two ciders in one glass and offered me a taste! Then bought Layne and I our drinks! Our dogs were wagging their tails together as we sipped our pink drinks. 

Mancos the small town, rather lovely at least in summer. I don’t think winter would suit me. 

Then back to our boondock in the woods fifteen minutes outside town. 

Boondocking Colorado

The weekend: the most baffling two days of the week.

I’ve never really had a nine-to-five Monday through Friday schedule and I positively loved the police schedule in dispatch of two on, two off and every weekend was three days alternating between working or off duty. Paradoxically now that I am retired I find weekends to be a nuisance, and wish everyone had to work seven days a week, just for my convenience you understand.

Schools don’t help of course with my scheduling problems. In a couple of weeks the tents will be a happy memory and school buses will join us clogging the highways and peace and serenity will return to my lawn, the public open spaces we enjoy so much.

So the joy of camping at 9400 feet outside Silverton, a tourist center created out of a 19th century silver mining rush  is mitigated slightly by all the traffic. Our spot is pleasant enough tucked in by the side of a gravel road that is, it turns out quite popular. I wonder why? 

We are feeling slightly hamstrung by our Monday morning visit to the dealer for the factory mandated handbrake repair, so camping 90 minutes from Montrose seemed a good idea, and it was. However I wouldn’t have done it on the weekend, one of the last weekends of school break summer in a place where winter starts to loom. The trees below our parked Promaster offer a shady picnic area as the dust generating high speed busy locals rush by overhead. 

Ah, if all the world’s problems were this serious! The night sky is astounding especially as the moon is waning and riding late. The silence at night when the last of these blue arsed flies finally goes to bed is total. The air is cold and crisp and even in the heat of the day all you need is a little shade. Let them rush wherever they are going. We are snug. 

Driving fast creates washboard which will wreck these rushing vehicles given time. And then the owners will get online and complain about how their vehicles fall apart prematurely. 

I first met washboard riding a motorcycle in West Africa 50 years ago. The advice then was to drive fifty miles an hour to smooth out the ruts but that takes nerve and a long wide open road across the desert. 

Around here I see travel trailers bouncing like ping pong balls towed at speed over this stuff. No wonder campers fall apart. Arlene plod slowly at ten of fifteen miles an hour trying to lick the smoothest route and marvel at the Sierra at which we are passed as we pull over. 

Spot the dog on the ridge keeping an eye on me as I poke around down by the creek with my camera, waiting for the sun to come up:

Our Go Treads gold into a small package and can be used as mud planks in soft soil or as steps to level the van. Thusly: