May 25...good morning to the desert....when we drove in late last night we could tell that we were in the middle of nowhere and the morning brought the confirmation of that. The day is bright and sunny with a light cool breeze. The little kids took off to do their daily recon mission...where is the jumpy pillow, what kind of playground is there, pancakes? It is their routine now....who knows what they will do when we get home....walk the dog maybe??? The Pueblo KOA was our host last night and this morning. Older campground but facilities are clean and the staff are very cordial. There are large cacti surrounding the office. After breakfast, we hurriedly got our postcards finished and mailed and set out for a long drive to Durango. This will be our stopover on our way to four corners and Mesa Verde National Park. As we drove, we were interested to see the changing landscape. Similar to California, Colorado has a varied terrain depending on the area of the state that you visit. Today, the desert.


Driving our drive, we passed through a tiny little town and saw a sign for a free museum, buffalo (they are waiting to hear back from Ripleys about his size/they believe him to be the largest one if the world)  and horses. We decided to stop and have a small break. The buildings are a perfect little western town. They had a beautiful Paint, a Buckskin, and Mustangs. There were also a mini horse, a shetland and goats., a huge buffalo and goats. In the western town there were a sheriff's office (where the kids staged a jail break), newsparer office, indian teepee, Navaho house, prairie wagons, buffalo chip pile and hanging tree. The best part....in the trading post there was a litter of three 5 week old dachsund puppies.  They were adorable...reminded of my pooches Mozart and Beethoven.  There was also a parrot in the trading post and the cowboy told the kids how parrots were brought up from the Caribbean for their feathers and that they would wow the indians with them when they saw the birds talking at the trading post.  The indians were superstitious and would not attack a trading post that had a "talking bird".   

As the day wore on (and & I do mean, wore on) we noticed more trees coming into view. It was wonderful to see the mountains as they began to rise up around us. There is still snow in the hills and down around the base we could see the raging river waters. There are trees eveywhere you look. It is so pretty, reminds me of Tahoe. The altitude is getting higher and higher. Our trusty ride is not wanting to go much more thatn 20 mgh. At one point, we pulled over to let it cool down. We had just come down a grade that was sooo steep that it was a little scary coming down. At the bottom, we pulled over to let the engine cool down. The landscape was so beautiful!!!  It was much cooler here.