Yelapa

On Tuesday, we drove south of Puerto Vallarta to Bocas de Tomitlan, a little beach town right before the road leaves the beach. We went there to take a water taxi to Yelapa. Yelapa is a town with no roads going to it, has been a well known end of the world spot for many years, if you really want to get away from it all.

We had a beer while we were waiting for the water taxi, and then got on for the 30 minute ride to Yelapa. We spoke to a gringa on the taxi who retired to Yelapa from the US forest service, she loves it there, told us to get off at the village, not the beach. We started walking up towards the famous waterfall, stopping for beer and bathroom stop at Mimi`s cafe.

The water fall is pretty nice, with perhaps a 40 foot drop into a large pool, where some people were swimming. There we met a couple of ladies from New Orleans who had been taking photos of butterflies and flowers. They were there for ten days, seemed like a long time for a small place. We saw a very large all white butterfly, nothing any of us had seen before. They toured us around a bit, and then we headed back to Mimi`s to wait for the water taxi. We got chatting with Mimi, who told us her life story, with her parents divorcing when she was very young, living a few years in California, then returning to Mexico. She had been in Yelapa for 22 years, has four kids, youngest 15 years old.

We headed for the dock, where Richard panicked because he could not find the taxi ticket. He headed back to Mimi`s, but she was already walking down with the ticket, which had fallen out of his pocket. We rode back on the taxi with a nice couple from Denver, Ian and Clarisa?. We gave them a ride back to town. We headed back to our condo, where a Mexican fiesta was in progress, including a good Mariachi band.

We drove over to Los Arbolitos restaurant, up to the third floor overlooking the Cuale River. The service and ambience was good, but the food was forgettable.

We were all pretty tired by the time we got back to the condo, and agreed to defer a decision about our trip to Talpa for the morning, to see how we felt.

Puerto Vallarta

We arrived in Puerto Vallarta on Saturday, no problem, met Eileen at the airport, and picked up a rental car. We checked in at Eileen`s timeshare, and went to the supermarket. Saturday evening, we went out to Victor`s restaurant, kind of a family feel, a trio of musicians singing. Fun.

Sunday AM we went to the bilingual mass at the cathedral. We wandered around town shopping for a while. Eileen`s credit card company had shut off her card because she did not tell them she was going to Mexico, but we found a phone booth and fixed that. We all then took a nap. We had dinner at Arrayan`s restaurant, kind of a gourmet Mexican restaurant, Richard had his favorite, Chile en Nogada, which is not often available.

Monday we drove north up to Punta Mita, and stopped along the way to drink beer in two outdoor restaurants. Nice to get away from busy Puerto Vallarta, hang out on white beaches with few people, but you can`t get away from the time share salemen/promoters.

We had dinner at a tiny family restaurant specializing in tamales, Maria Candalaria, where dinner for three cost us 5 dollars US! Good tamales, wrapped in banana leaves or corn husks.

Driving Home

We woke up to beautiful blue skies, great driving weather.

The colors of the ground cover were beautiful; the snapshot from inside the car barely does them justice.

We saw a little snow on the side of the road in the mountain passes, but the drive was uneventful.

Snow started in Boulder a few hours after we got home, so our timing was very good. We had planned our drive home between two weather fronts.

Winery and Museum

We had a little rain in the morning, but it cleared up later.

After breakfast, we headed for the Two Rivers Winery. The winery has a Bed and Breakfast and an events center for weddings, etc. They have a small field with grapes, and buy some of their grapes. We tasted their Tulip, Riesling, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignon, and bought a bottle of Riesling, and a bottle of Cabernet.

We drove into Grand Junction and went to the Museum of the West, focused on the history of the Grand Valley area. Some of the exhibits were related to Alfred Packer, the famous cannibal, including a beautiful horsehair bridle that he made while he was in prison. There was an exhibit of handguns owned by the sheriffs of Mesa County. Interestingly, they were all revolvers except for two sheriffs in the early 1900s, and the two most recent sheriffs, who carried semi-automatic pistols. Richard went to the top of their observation tower, from which he saw the Grand Mesa, and an overview of the town.

Marianne spotted a blacksmithing book in the museum bookstore, and Richard bought two books, Beautiful Iron, written and signed by Francis Whitaker, and My Life as an Artist Blacksmith, by Francis Whitaker as told to Gary Mansheld, signed by Mansheld. Francis Whitaker is a famous local blacksmith, who lived and worked in Aspen and Carbondale Colorado, as well as Carmel California. Richard thought that these books were quite a find, although he never met Francis.

In the evening, Richard walked over to the lake at the campground to go fishing. He later went over to the river, but did not attract the interest of any of the fish.

We closed out the evening with a game of Skipbow, which Marianne won.

Grand Junction

Since our propane was low, and we were concerned if our batteries would last another cold night, we left Saddlehorn campground in the Monument. Richard was less nervous about the tunnels this time, especially since the campground host said that he had seen 40 foot bus type RVs in the campground. We moved to the State Park in Fruita, which was full when we stopped by Monday. This time they had room in the inn, so we happily plugged in at the modern campground. The weather was cold in the morning, but shirtsleeve weather in the afternoon.

After lunch, we decided to head down the road on the south side of the Colorado River towards Grand Junction. We passed many beautiful homes outside the monument. In Grand Junction, we headed for the downtown, where there were many public sculptures and a pedestrian mall on Main Street. We especially liked the buffalo made of cut up car bumpers. The downtown is apparently a low rent area, although most of the storefronts contained businesses, with many shops with antiques, furniture, and clothing. There was even a used bookstore with boxes of books in every aisle, suitably funky. We stopped in an antique shop, an upscale thrift store, and had a bagel at the bagel place.

On the drive home, we checked the nearby Two Rivers winery, which is open til 6 PM most days.

Richard walked along the river in the campground, which includes a boat ramp. We hope to bird there on Thursday.

Colorado National Monument

We got up in our beautiful campground, and went to the visitor center for a guided hike on the Alcove nature trail. We chatted some with a family from the Netherlands.

After lunch, we headed out to tour the monument. We stopped at various overlooks that took our fancy.

Richard had it in his mind that he wanted to see if there was a way to Saddlehorn campground without going through the tunnels. It turns out that there is, through the Glade Park area. Unfortunately, it was a bumpy, twisty road that connects back to the east Monument entrance road near Broadway in Grand Junction, involving "D" road, Rosedale road, and Little Park road. We gassed up in Grand Junction, and then headed back into the park via the East Entrance, which has one tunnel. We stopped to walk a little of the Serpents Trail, but were disconcerted to see the sign indicating that Mountain Lions had been seen in the area, so we did not go far from the car.

We did take a walk to the end of Otto's trail, with beautiful views of the canyons.

Marianne cooked a good pork dinner.

After dark, Richard went out alone to get some moonlight photographs. Unfortunately, his camera did not do well with just moonlight. Richard kept looking over his shoulder to see if there were any mountain lions about, especially since there was no one around, and mountain lions are nocturnal.

Boulder to Fruita

After carefully considering our options, and focusing on the weather forecast, we decided to go to the warmest reasonable choice, the Grand Junction area. We had some concerns about driving over the mountains, which were reinforced by I-70 being closed due to an accident, and we were considering other options. However, we called again right before we left, and the road report was more favorable, so we stuck to plan A.

We left Boulder Monday around 10 AM, and headed into the mountains. As we got closer to the continental divide, the rain turned to snow, but the roads remained wet. We pressed on through the Eisenhauer tunnel, down the other side, and then over Vail pass. Once we got to Vail, the weather improved, and we settled into the rest of the drive. Glenwood Canyon was beautiful, as usual. We stopped at the New Castle diner for a decent lunch, nice folks.

We drove through Grand Junction, headed for the state park in Fruita Colorado. However, we were surprised to find the campground full, on a Monday night in October! We decided to head up into Colorado National Monument. Richard had looked at the map, and concluded that we would not need to go through the low tunnels to get to the campground. Unfortunately, Richard was mistaken, so we drove slowly and nervously down the middle of the road through two low tunnels. The tunnels were marked as 10.5 feet high, and our rig is 12 feet, but with the arched roof, the center of the tunnel is higher than the edges, so we got away with it.

Saddlehorn campground overlooks the grand valley. The campground was not full, and we found a pretty good site, only required more leveling than usual. The weather here is nicer than it was in Boulder, temperature around 50F at sunset.

Tomorrow we will look at our camper battery voltage, and decide if we will spend another night here, or retreat to an electric outlet.