Hi folks, a quick update. My mental health is improving. It’s amazing what eating well, avoiding TV, hiking a lot and sleeping outside will do for your mind. Unfortunately, for you, the blog may be less sensational. The journey continues…

I spent a few days in Durango this week. I like it. It’s a tourist and college town where the people are real, less western chic. It’s down by the beautiful Animas river. There are roads leaving town in four directions and they all go to amazing places. I ended up getting a room because my car needed new brakes and rotors. The hotel room smelled bad, like chemical cleaning supplies, but it was cheap and I watched YouTube and worked on my blog till 3:00 in the morning.

Waiting for the car, I got coffee and breakfast at a sweet local cafe called Bread. I stopped at the amazing Blue Rain gallery. It was like an art museum. They show many great artists but two that I loved were Marc Pugh and Sean Diediker. (Check out their links for more images). There’s lots of jewelry and art in these mountain towns. I decided to treat myself so I bought a pinky ring with a big masculine rectangular gemstone on it called rhodochrosite. A quick search of crystal healer sites say it will help me ‘want to become a more responsible person.’ Hmmm, OK, I’ll take that. I think Durango was good for me. I needed to unwind and take care. I’m not having the angry reactions that hounded me earlier.

Whenever I find a campsite there’s a dilemma. Do I set up the tent or just lay out my bed on the ground? I have a light backpacking tent and it’s a lifesaver a high elevations. I would freeze my butt off without it. Now that I’m lower I don’t need it. It’s not robust nor utilitarian and there’s more time with set up and tear down. With my groundcloth and ample bedding, I’m well supplied with thermal barriers. Sleeping on the ground, under the stars is wonderful. However, I’m scared of mice, raccoons, armadillos, coyotes, and spiders. It’s really too cold for snakes but they’re out there. This campground posted a warning about bears. I’m trying to imagine how being in the a tent will help when a bear is trying to get at me. Sleeping in the car could be helpful if I rig the passenger seat forward and pack in some gear to get a full full 6 and 1/2 ft bed. I set up my bear protection tent tonight.

I’m making breakfast at the campsite in La Plata canyon. I like the land west of Durango. It reminds me of North Carolina. There’s big pines everywhere and smaller scruffy oaks underneath with broad rolling hills. The matrix of farms and country stores has the feel of rural NC. It’s drier but it looks like the Sandhills or the upper Piedmont around Stone mountain.

With its grazing and farmland, these foothills look like the Appalachian mountains, two or three thousand feet above the valley floor. It’s late fall. Peak leaf season has passed, replaced by rusty, burnt umber, and earth-toned grasslands.

Hiking up Box Canyon on the lower slopes of San Juan National Forest, I’m seeing meadow rue, columbine, some thimble berry, wild geranium, dogbane, and something like mahonia or Oregon grape? Ah, there’s a little elderberry; I’ve been waiting for that. I stopped on the trail where a wide open view of the valley below and the forested ridges across climb up to high peaks. I realize something about the majestic scale. While I breathe in, the impact of this distant scenery comes in through my eyes, goes down my neck, and into the center of my chest where it mixes with the air that I’m breathing. The scenery and the environment are literally interacting with me at a molecular level. The effect as I breathe out is a relaxing awe.

I saw something weird driving out on the forest road. There was a woman holding a big camera. Another woman (the model) had heavy makeup, high heels and a big hairdo. She’s wearing a flowery, cape with matching undergarments. There’s also a bearded dude with lighting equipment tying up a big white tarp.

Back on the road coming into Dove Creek winding through the grid of roads northward across wide open rolling hillsides. The farmland here, it actually has tilled soil and row crops. I have not seen that since Oklahoma. It looks like nice tillable soil. No rocks? I’m not talking about a river valley’s loamy flood plain. This is dry hill country. The crop looked like a thistle. What could that be? It’s not artichokes.

Past these farms to forested area ahead, the road dips and turns off the grid. It enters BLM land with sizable turnouts on either side where I could probably camp for the night but I keep going. It’s not a bad road. The ruts are small. There are unusually large pieces of gravel on the road bed. A couple miles in, some sloped areas become a steady steeper grade. I’m dropping elevation now with some big bumps and rough spots but nothing my low riding oupe cannot handle. The grade continues down. The rough bumpy loose gravelly areas continue. With a wall on my left and a gully on the right there are no turnarounds. I realize I would not be able to back out of here and I’m beginning to wonder what I’m getting into. There is not one section that will be impassable going back up. But I’m starting to realize it will be a long, steady, rough climb out of here. That’s assuming I can turn around, and it doesn’t get worse. It’s getting close to sunset and I can see the far wall of the canyon ahead so the bottom is down there, hopefully only hundreds of feet down, and not a thousand. I don’t have much choice but to keep going.

To be continued…

™