With 110 miles to go today, we were in no big hurry to get going, so we did our morning routine and left the campground around 10:00. That worked out well since I got up at 2:15 AM early this morning to go outside and view the meteor shower. The skies were clear and it was a cool night, so I took a blanket and laid on the picnic table to get a comfortable view of the skies. There was some ambient light from the neon signs and street lights around , but I found a dark spot where the bus blocked most of the light. The 1/2 moon also shone pretty bright, but I was able to see 5 meteors in 30 minutes. They said under the right conditions, you could see 10-15 meteors an hour during the peak times of 2-4:00 AM. I considered myself lucky to see what I did and it was still amazing. Some of the meteors had tails that were visible a long time. I thanked my lucky stars to see them! I was also thankful to get a little extra sleep this morning. We made a fuel stop a mile from the campground after getting on Highway 491 to Cortez, CO. It took us about 15 minutes and we were on our way. We crossed over the CO border after about 20 miles.
It was a clear, sunny morning, with a temp of 77 degrees. The terrain consisted of green farm fields with some rolling hills. We did get a peek at Ute Peak at 9,978 ft.
The road took us near the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation.
At Cortez, we hopped on Highway 160 to Durango which skirted the edge of Mesa Verde National Park. Traveling east, we could see Herperus Mountain at an elevation of 13, 232 ft.
We could see a yurt standing on the mountain off in the distance.
Soon we left the farm fields and transitioned into the foothills and the high plains.
We started our climb into the mountains passing the entrance to Mesa Verde NP.
I caught sight of the recognizable butte at the entrance to the park.
We also drove by the RV park that we stayed in when we visited Mesa Verde a few years ago. The mountains became forested and not rocky, but occasionally we’d see a rock outcropping.
(I’m sure some of you have gotten tired of my rock pictures, but I’ve always been interested in the geological features of an area.) We descended a hill into town that was long and steep.
We entered the town of Durango and crossed over the Animas River.
We drove to the east side of Durango to our RV Park which sits on the top of a hill. It used to be an KOA park, so it has some of the same features, We arrived at Oasis RV Resort at around 12:30.
We checked in and were led to site #32.
It is a deluxe site with a table and chairs and a fire pit that uses propane. We’ll have to see if we can rent a propane tank tomorrow so we can have a campfire.
This area has a stage 1 fire ban, so you can’t burn wood for any reason. We just took it easy today and I did some wash. Tomorrow we have a reservation on the Durango Narrow Gauge Railroad which is a steam vintage coach that runs from Rockwood to Cascade Canyon. Normally, it runs from Silverton to Durango, but there was a landslide a couple of weeks ago which did damage to the track, so they have shortened the ride. We are looking forward to that. We are here 5 nights so we have lots of time to explore the area since neither of us have been here before. We took our evening walk around the campground. It was pretty full, in fact, one of the fullest campgrounds we’ve seen. There is a river flowing through the park as well as lots of things for the kids to do. It also has a heated pool and dog park.
I’m sure we’re going to enjoy our time here in Durango.