A Change in Plans

Our original schedule called for Wednesday to be a family history day, with Marianne as our host and guide. But John's illness resulted in a change of plan. Wednesday became a free day, with people fishing, playing in the water, and just hanging out. Eileen spent the day at the hospital, and dropped off Amber and Bridget to spend the day with us.


Throughout the trip, it was fun to watch the kids play with one another. They played together very well, generally in groups where the kids were of similar ages.

Charlie was supposed to return from his business trip on Wednesday, and pick up Amber and Bridget from us. However, weather resulted in flight delays, and we were not sure when he would arrive. Amber and Bridget spent the night in Richard and Marianne's camper, which they took very well.

Thursday was supposed to be a ride on the Durango-Silverton train. But a landslide had shut down the line, except for a short ride to Cascade. Everyone went for the train refund, and we agreed to river raft instead, so we reserved the short raft trip on the Animas River in the town of Durango, starting at 11 AM and ending at 1 PM.


Marianne's old friends, Pat and Pete, arrived Wednesday to join the reunion. Unfortunately, that night Pat had trouble breathing, so they headed to the emergency room in the wee hours of Thursday morning.

Mesa Verde

On Tuesday, we drove to Mesa Verde National Park. The drive from the highway to the ruins is slow and twisty, but very pretty. The dead trees from the 1996 Chapin fire can be seen for most of the drive.

When we got to the visitor center, we found that the Cliff Palace tours were sold out until 5 PM, while the Balcony House tours were sold out until 4 PM. The Balcony House tour includes some 30 foot ladders and a short tunnel on your hands and knees, so this was not appropriate for some members of the party. Some people bought tickets for the Balcony House tour, and then we had a picnic lunch.

After lunch, we walked down to Spruce House to take a look. Lots of folks looking around, and a line to get down into the kiva. Then it was time to head over for the tour.


Balcony House is known for the small balconies that are found there, complete with the original dirt and bark flooring. The house was built under an overhang, like many at Mesa Verde, and required tons of dirt and stone to be hauled up just to build the floor and retaining wall, let alone the buildings. The water supply was a small seep. The tour guide told us that they no longer refer to these people as Anazai, which is a Navaho word meaning ancient enemy. They now believe that these were the ancestor of the indians of the many Pueblos found in New Mexico and Arizona. The Kivas included the Sipapu, or symbolic hole from which the Pueblan peoples believe that they came from the third world to the fourth world. At the end of the tour, we had to climb a couple of ladders, with a rainstorm starting to build. The rain and wind had started in earnest by the time we climbed the last ladder, and we ran back to the cars. The drive out was done in a downpour, including one lightning strike very close to our car.



About the time we arrived in camp, we received a call from Eileen, letting us know that John was taken by ambulance to the hospital, because he was unable to speak. Dennis and Marianne drove to to the hospital to support Eileen. John was admitted to the hospital to stabilize his glucose levels, which had dropped to zero, making it a near miracle that he was still alive. Marianne spent the night with Eileen at the cabin.

A Day at the Lake

We started the day with a leisurely breakfast of bacon, eggs and pancakes, and of course more socializing. After breakfast, we headed over to the lake, to John and Eileen's cabin.

We spent a lot of time visiting with John, who is not well enough to come to the reunion, so we brought the reunion to him.

The loudest sounds came from the swimmers when they hit the cold lake water, but they had a good time. Alma and Rosalee fished off the dock. Richard took out a kayak, including Erica and Grace, who wanted a ride. Just when we reached the other side of the lake, we saw and heard the crack of lightning, so we paddled right back.

We concluded our visit to the lake with a tribute/sharing session with John. We went around the room, and people talked about how much John meant to them in their lives, and shared some anecdotes. By the end of our visit, the regularly scheduled afternoon rainstorm had arrived, bringing more water than usual.

Dinner was spaghetti, corn, and salad, prepared by Deb and Brent, a delicious meal. We agreed to leave the campground at 10 AM the following day to drive to Mesa Verde.

Richard and Marianne

Mogote to Durango – Start of Reunion

Since we were the organizers of the reunion, we decided that we needed to get to the reunion site early. So we were on the road before seven in the morning. We then proceeded to have a very up and down drive to Durango, starting with Cumbres Pass. This was a slow drive in places, but we arrived at the campground at 11:30 AM. Our campground hosts were there to greet us, Shirley and Shelby. They are a retired couple from Florida, and very talkative. Shelby is definitely a good old boy, with colorful expressions and lots of stories. The most important practical thing that we learned was that bears have been a problem at the campground, raiding the dumpster and wandering through camp. After about half an hour of chatting, we pulled in and set up. The facility was just as nice as we remembered, and larger than we needed.

The first to arrive were Jim and Karen from Cortez, followed by Tim and Cindy from Missoula, Dennis and his family from Denver, Teresa and her family from Illinois, Deb and her family from Denver, Judy and her family from Wyoming, as well as Don and Sharon from New Mexico, who were bringing Nicolette and Prescott, Tim's adult children, and Kristin, Prescott's girlfriend. Charlie and his girls from Phoenix showed up later. There was a lot of catching up to do, and conversations all over. Richard and Marianne provided burgers and brats, with expert grilling assistance from Judy's husband Ron. The evening ended with a campfire and a careful cleaning of the camp, leaving no food or trash behind. The reunion got off to a good start, with everyone arriving safely, about thirty people in all.

Tomorrow is the day at the lake, at Eileen and John's cabin, which everyone is looking forward to.

Fishing the Conejos River near Platoro

After getting some flies and advice from the Conejos fly shop, we drove up 20 miles of dirt road to the Conejos River near the town of Platoro. We fished in the meadows below Platoro. We saw large fish feeding on the surface, but had no luck until Marianne hooked a big one. She was working hard, wanting not to lose it. When she tried to work it into an eddy it dived and caught on an underwater snag. Luckily, it was not too deep, and Richard was able to wade in, free the fish from the snag, and net him. After Richard removed the fly, the fish escaped the net, before we could measure it. We are going to call it an 18 inch brown trout.

There are campgrounds up and down the Conejos, both commercial and forest service. The forest service campground a few miles below Platoro, Lake Fork, may be the best choice for fishing, but reservations may be needed to get a good site, such as site 17.

We drove into the town of Antonito to go to church. The parish has a total of 6 mission churches, scattered around the area. The main church, in the town of Conejos, is the oldest church in Colorado, founded in 1858. The people in the church were very friendly. The priest was from Chihuahua, Mexico, very nice. On the way back to the campground, we stopped at the old burned out church in Las Mesitas. Richard wanted to take pictures. The cemetery was moderately interesting, including a stone for someone who earned a Silver Star in Vietnam. The saddest was a pair of elaborate stones, one for a teenager, and the other for his father and mother. The Father died a few months after the son, at the age of forty-two. Sunday we get up very early to drive to Durango, to try to get there early to greet the reunion participants.

Fishing the Conejos

We drove up the road a few miles to fish in one of the public access leases. We fished for a couple of hours, with the only action one fish on for about 3 seconds. Marianne saw an American Dipper along the river, an uncommon bird, as well as a couple of water snakes next to the river.

We went back to the car for lunch, and then drove upriver, what seemed like a very long way on a dirt road. We stopped in a meadow and fished, again without success. We figured out later that if we had driven a couple more miles, we would have reached Platoro reservoir. We arrived at the camper in a steady rain, ate dinner, and closed out the evening with a game of Skipbow.

Boulder to Mogote

The drive from Boulder to Mogote felt routine, since we had been in Mogote only a few weeks ago. We went down 285 through the San Luis Valley, always a beautiful drive, did some grocery shopping in Alamosa, and drove to the Mogote campground, on the Conejos River. We even took the same campsite that we had stayed in a few weeks before.

When we arrived, we set out a hummingbird feeder, which we don't normally do. We immediately had a rufous hummingbird at our feeder, and no end of entertainment watching the hummingbirds chase each other and use the feeder.