Durango Now, But Not With the Excitement We Usually Feel

We arrived in Montrose, CO to the Centennial RV Park, about 10 miles south of town,  with long pull through sites and a killer view.  It was a fairly long, but uneventful trip down from Heber City, UT.  We got into our site along with the smoke that had accompanied us the whole way.

We had initially planned to stay at Ridgway State Park just down the road, but at the last minute, we decided to cancel that and stay at Centennial.  Since the next day was still smoky, we drove down to the park to check out the fishing area in the tailwaters under the dam on the Umcompahgre River.  Unfortunately the water was extremely low, but they have done a fabulous job making a stellar trout habitat.  We talked to several fishermen and they all said the fishing was nonexistent, so we decided to put it off for another time.

A good example of proper trout stream management
And if you look at the mountain in the back, that hazy stuff is smoke

So back we went and got excellent take out pizza for lunch, and lunch the next day:-)  We woke up the next morning to clear skies, so we decided if it held until afternoon we would grab some coffee and do the Last Dollar Road, basically from Ridgway to Telluride, one of our absolute favorite scenic roads, especially in the fall with the aspens turning.

No smoke from our site!

We were a little behind the aspens, but there were still pockets of beauty

Yellow carpeting

What a terrific road

Nearing Telluride

Near Telluride, in fact if you look carefully on the right side,
you can see some of the ski area

Then the smoke came back along with hellacious winds, so we hunkered down, made soup, Jan played Mahjong online with some friends, and then smashed me in Scrabble again and again, in fact I have only won 1 game in 15!  I am an idiot, evidently:-(

But the wind eased, and the smoke went away again, so back in the truck for an awesome loop beginning in Cimarron up to Silver Jack reservoir, then up and over the 10,114' Owl Creek Pass, back down into Ridgway for our last day in Montrose.  And it worked out perfectly.  This time we packed a picnic lunch.

The beginning of the road near Cimarron

Bold scenery

A hawk looking for lunch

Our lunch spot from a distance

Our view while eating

And the other way

Most of the leaves were gone on this ride

Chimney Rock

High on the mountain making our way down towards Ridgway

Rugged with most of the leaves gone

So that was it for Montrose and we were going to Durango in the morning.  It is real different this year, we have been going to Durango every year for almost 10 years, and for a month at a time, and we've always looked forward to it, but we almost cancelled this year.  Hard to explain.  We have run out of patience with the constant wind this year, the constant dust and smoke, hard to believe as we really love the West, but this year, I don't know.  Part of it was we had a terrible experience last year, the regular managers weren't there, and the owners brought in a couple to manage the place.  It was apparent they had a lot to learn, they set rules and did things that were just whims to them and it was easy to see they were real neophytes.  The last straw was we were informed 10 days before our departure that we would have to move sites, away from a site we had reserved a year out.  At first it was just an order, not a request, needless to say I asked to speak with the manager, in fact set up a meeting to speak to her, and she never even came!  Then with steam coming out my ears, I told her husband I wanted to know the why behind our order to move.  When she did decide to talk to us, she hemmed and hawed and finally said they had to winterize the park, understand this was 10 days before the park was closing, also they were turning away people left and right and were telling them they couldn't stay even though the park was almost empty, some managers, huh?  We went back and forth and it turned out they were not familiar with this park and had never winterized before, so wanted us out of the way.  Suddenly she relented and said we could stay where we were.  At the same time we made a month long reservation for this year on a specific site and received confirmation of it both in a receipt and email.  But the situation put a bad taste in our mouth.

Now as everyone knows this year has been a challenge, Covid rules are different everywhere we go, we are not comfortable eating inside, although we try to use take out at least once a week, and we had read about happenings in downtown we weren't too keen on, so we decided initially we would just cancel Durango........  Then we waffled, and changed it to two weeks, and in reality, just before we left Montrose almost cancelled again, but we told ourselves, it's only for two weeks, we were meeting Karen and Tom there for a week, and we'd be on the site we wanted.  So off we went, had a lovely drive, and pulled into the park and what do we see, somebody parked in OUR site!  I almost turned around right then, but, we have packages and mail being delivered.  We get in a big back and forth, and the poor work camper is caught in the middle, the same manager that wouldn't talk to us the previous year says too bad, after it was her who guaranteed our site.  This time it wasn't just me steaming, Jan was upset as well.  Just as the situation is coming to a head, up comes a golf cart with work camper friend's Lori and Brian who welcomed us, that we hadn't seen for 2 years, since they weren't here last year, and then found themselves in the middle of this as well.  Now Lori is a go-getter, efficient, and incredibly competent, she said get parked and let me see what I can do.  So we did.  Sure enough in a few minutes Brian comes down to ask us if another site would be acceptable?  It was essentially the same site as we had reserved but on the other side, so we said, of course.  We move Friday.  Lori and Brian saved the day!

This year for us has been a story of change, we have lengthened, shortened and even cancelled out in many places, instead of the front range of the Rockies in CO, we opted to stay in Montana. So many things were affected by the virus, or at least our reaction to it, we took no float trips at all, haven't dined in anywhere, in fact except for a few exceptions we haven't eaten out or even outside at a restaurant.  We've grocery shopped, and picked up a few things here and there, but no other shopping, in fact, we never even went into a fly shop!  Sure hope next season is completely different.