I love the mountains

Hi Ya'll! I'm back from vacation, and ready to share pictures of our adventures!
We drove out to Durango, and stayed at the Riverside Resort about 15 miles outside of the city, in the cutest little cabins. They were right on the Animas river, and were so peaceful.
Ours had a deck that overlooked the river, and a picnic table, with big trees over the top of us. Nice and quiet, just what I like!
You could walk down a steep embankment to get to the river below us, and wade in the shallow parts. Macie did, but she said it was cold!
The first day after we got there, we drove up the mountain, trying to find this particular lake that I had read about on the internet, called Potato or Spud Lake. We finally find the turnoff, and it turns into a dirt road right away. So we're driving down it, and it's getting worse, and worse, and we're in our family sedan, which is NOT made for 4x4 type trails, let me tell you. We tortured through it for close to a mile, (with 2 more to go!) and just couldn't do it any longer, so we had to turn back around, go through the same torture again for a mile to get out of there.
We ended up going back down, and finding Lake Haviland, which was right off the road, which allowed fishing. It was a beautiful small lake, and Macie and my hubbie had fun practicing casting and reeling. They didn't actually fish, they just go for fun.
These funny little sparrows kept landing right by us, catching these little winged bugs, several at a time. I think they were Fox sparrows.
After that we drove into Durango, to catch out Hummer 4x4 tour, which takes you up into La Plata canyon, all the way up to the top. This was a 4 hour ride, and was way rougher than I thought it would be, girls. I expected it would be dirt roads, and a little rough here and there, but I was sadly mistaken. the trail was full of huge rocks and ruts.
I have neck issues, and can't be jerked and thrown all over the place, and this is exactly how it was!
I had to end up sitting in the front with the tour guide, looking through a small windsheild and side window most of the trip. Expensive ride. Bummer.
At the top it was beautiful, though, and we had a wonderful sunny day. My daughter laughed and was just in total joy the whole time, so I guess it was worth it since she had a blast.
We also saw several cool waterfalls, from all the snowmelt up there.
Oh, and I saw my first Marmot. Looks like a beaver without the long flat tail.
When we came back down, I checked to make sure my neck could still turn, and we headed off to the Bar D Chuckwagon show and dinner.
This was really fun, eating a traditional cowboy dinner, complete with BBQ chicken, baked beans, baked potato, biscuits, chunky applesauce, and sweet spice bread. Oh, and all the lemonade and coffee you could drink. The show was pretty funny, too. There were 4 cowboys singing and bantering jokes. We laughed about a misfit Old McDonald's farm, including a dyslexic sheep (aab, aab,) a snake with a lisp (Hith, hith,) a stuttering cow (Mmmmm, Mmmmm).
The next day was devoted to Mesa Verde, and seeing the cliff dwellings left behind by the ancient Puebloans. I remember a little of going there when I was about 9 years old with my family.
We did three sites, two of which you had to get tickets for. The most strenuous was the Balcony House, in which you had to climb a 32 foot ladder to get into the dwellings, which was a little scary.
You stand at the bottom, ready to climb up, and all you can think is, don't fall, stupid, don't slip off and break your neck (although the day before's Hummer tour almost did!) Don't be the first in Mesa Verde's history to go flying off this thing, taking out everyone under you! Oh, and DON'T look down!Here's Macie crawling up out of one of the Kivas.


So we all make it up safely, and then soon after have to crawl through a very small long narrow tunnel. Some of the people who had at some point eaten too much Taco Bell in their lives barely shimmied through, let me tell you!
At the end of that tour, you had to climb up an open rock face hanging on to these rails secured(?) into the mountain, trying not to fall backwards or look down. Pretty crazy, that tour.
We all made it out alive, though, really!
The night time brought a nice campfire, and plenty of roasted marshmallow.

On the way home, we drove through Ouray, which was a pretty little town. Every time I saw an antique shop, and there were a few cool ones on your way into Montrose, I wanted so bad to stop and browse. We were all so tired and had such a long drive home, that we really couldn't, though.
There were so many awesome and beautiful areas where we were, that I wish we had more time to explore around, and of course, Durango had so many cool shops down in the historic distric to look at, but we just didn't have the time.
I took lots of fun pictures, which really pressures me to get them into a scrapbook soon. I only have 4,00 other pictures in line, waiting THEIR turn to be put into albums.
Tick tock, tick tock....