We headed out of Ouray last Saturday, in the thoughts of camping at the trailhead. The drive took much longer than anticipated, and the afternoon thunderstorms were kicking in. So, we opted to find a place to stay in Lake City, CO to gear up. After searching a bit we scored a cabin at the Wagon Wheel Cabins. There is a three night minimum but we lucked out and could get a cabin between two three night stay guests. We got the last cabin, much to the chagrin of a former visitor from the cabin. She, her husband, and daughter returned to the cabins moments after I had paid for the cabin, thinking they had a cabin for the night. When the owner told her I had gotten the last one, she became upset, stating that she had told the owner's wife earlier to "hold a cabin for them." She looked at me and said, "Evidently she did not tell her husband." Who just puts a "hold" on a cabin without putting a deposit down??? The owner apologized that he did not have a cabin to rent her, but also stood his ground in giving the cabin to me. She proceeded to ask him if they could at least use a bathroom in one of the cabins before they headed on their way. "Is Cabin 2 available for use?" she asked. "We stayed there last night and loved it." The owner did not let her use a bathroom, telling her all cabins were already clean. She turned to me and hugged me, telling me that we were going to love it there. On her way out, she yelled out her car window telling the owner to give them a call if someone did not show up. Not sure where they planned to go. The town was all of two miles long. Everything was pretty much all booked up already. It was a very strange town, like something out of the Twilight Zone. Jeff commented that when we left he half expected to see signs saying "Entering Lake City, CO" over and over again as we drove. He wondered if we would ever leave Lake City, CO.
Our backpack did not go as planned, the elevation hitting everyone pretty hard the first day. We made it .9 miles up the trail in a little over an hour with only 900 feet of elevation gain. We still needed to go another 3.5 miles with 1500 feet of elevation, and again, the afternoon thunderstorms were starting to kick in. The decision was made to bail and get the heck out of Colorado with their elevation and afternoon thunderstorms! It was on to Taos, NM, a town we had heard was pretty cool.
We found a campsite for $15 a night at the Enchanted Moon Campground. When I called ahead to see if they had sites available, the camp host happily told me they did but regretfully told me they were 14 miles out of town in a valley. When we arrived at the campground we found the host and his friend (the owner?) to be wonderful hippies that are happily living in a valley outside of Taos. They were very helpful and ran a great, affordable campground. The camp host told us about a restaurant next to the St. Francis Church in town that served the "best tacos he'd ever had!" Coming from a former Texan we figured we HAD to go to the restaurant. Unfortunately, when we found the restaurant (after calling the camp host because we couldn't find it) it was closed on Mondays. Ugh!
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| Brandon's disappointment over tacos. |
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| St Francis Church in Taos, subject of Georgia O'Keefe painting |
We drove around Taos, visited the Gorge. The Gorge had lots of vendors and a guitarist playing next to the bridge. We did not give him money and as we left, he flipped us off as we drove past!!! The kids and Jeff think it's because I did not think he was very good and I looked at him as we passed. No one saw him flip us off but Brooke, who said, "Oh no! He just gave us the finger!" (in shock). Town had lots of cute shops but we found most to be overpriced artwork.
After Taos we headed to Nashville, an 18 hour drive. We plugged along and drove like mad, arriving in Nashville around 4 pm on Wednesday. We hoteled it again. Now, what to do in Nashville? We let the graduates decide.
While waiting for our hotel room to be available, we went to the Shipwreck Cove restaurant on J. Percy Priest Lake. We had a wonderful waitress who was originally from Buffalo. She told us about the exciting day she had with a visit to the restaurant by Luke Bryan. Jeff and I had no idea why she was so excited about his visit and when the kids saw our faces they said, "They have no idea who he is." She exclaimed, "No!" To which Brooke Googled a picture of him to show us. On our way to the hotel while Jeff was in a store, the kids and I witnessed an older toothless gentleman talking to himself. He came to get on his three-wheeled motorcycle right next to us. At this point we could read his t-shirt. It said, "If you can read this shirt then the bitch fell off." It was a picture of Trump on a motorcycle with Hillary falling off the back of the bike. Across the bottom it read "Make America Great Again." Classic. We wondered what the next three days had in store for us!!!
Thursday we hit the Adventure Science Museum (a choice of Brandon and Brooke) and then we finally got Brandon his real barbecue dinner at Martin's Bar-B-Que Joint. It was fantastic! We got the Big Daddy Meal that could feed 4-5 people - chicken, pulled pork, brisket, ribs, with sides of mac and cheese, potato salad, cornbread, and hush puppies. Yum!
We visited the Nashville Zoo, a request of Lynn. The kids loved the animals! The most exciting highlights from the visit was petting a kangaroo and seeing the giraffes.
We didn't feel like a visit to Nashville would have been complete without taking in a show at the Grand Olde Opry. So, on our final night in Nashville we did just that. It was a blast and it was well worth every single penny we paid to see the show. The final performers were the Oak Ridge Boys and they performed "Elvira," which was a thrill to the audience. Luckily we had purchased an Oak Ridge Boys CD during the day and had played "Elvira" for the kids beforehand. So they knew exactly how the song would go!
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| At the Grand Olde Opry! |
Brandon flew home Saturday (which was a journey in itself as his leg from Washington D.C. home got cancelled!) but didn't get home until Sunday after Lisa and Brian fetched him at the airport in D.C. We headed to Lake Anna, VA to meet up with the gang for a week, which is where we are now.
Awesome trip and sad to see it end. But, it will also be good to be back home on Sunday. Then... the whirlwind of Lynn going to college, Brooke starting Varsity Swimming, and our preparing for our new classes!
