Stony Pass, Summitville and Lake city

Our first day off found us loading up with Calvin's big green Arctic Cat and heading with 4 other UTV's up Stony Pass over to Silverton.

This is our ride for the day! Thanks Calvin!

This was about an 11 hour ride.  The UTV's were unloaded by Rio Grande Reservoir which is on the other side of Creede, about 1.25 hours from South Fork.  The scenery was spectacular!

Rio Grande Reservoir

The start of the Rio Grande River. All the way to Mexico!

Ron and our ride!

One of many stream crossings

Here's the line of UTV's we traveled with. David Matthews is our captain!

Gigantic beaver dam!

A little rocky going uphill!

Look at our path!

Biggest stream crossing.

Lunch break!

Do you see the heart!

Above the tree line!

One of the coolest things I experienced was to see a shepherd and his flock of sheep at the top of Stony Pass.

There's the shepherd!  He was so friendly!

The shepherd and his dogs!

And his flock!

Check out the columbines!

At the upper elevations, there are so many colorful wildflowers.

Old mine coming into Silverton

Downtown Silverton

The shepherd and his dogs had rounded up all the sheep for the evening.  We saw him walking to his tent on our way back over Stony Pass.

Tracking behind David and Barbara on some rough rocks.

The next day we were treated to a visit by long time friends Mickey and Vicki Reynolds, one of our former pastors from Wharton, TX. He just retired and they are "testing" the full time RVing life style.  We took them on a jeep ride to Summitville, an old historical mine site not too far from South Fork.  It was beautiful scenery and it was so fun to share their excitement, feeling like we were touching the clouds!!

The streams are scarce due to the drought.

Looking for moose!

Summitville

Still a working mine

Cool equipment

Ran into another flock of sheep. They also have goats.

See the shepherd? He has horses. We saw his tent several miles back.

Mickey and Vicki are very special folks. Not only did he marry my youngest daughter, he also baptized me, her and my grandson Aiden. Glad to share our life with them!

Our last day off, we decided to take our jeep and drive up to Lake City. Oh my gosh.....it's a beautiful drive, about 75 miles one way.  The drive down Colorado 149 crosses 2 mountain passes.  

The start of the Rio Grande

That tallest peak of Uncompahgre Peak at 14,307'

The town of Lake City is very historical. I love the board walks that line the streets.

Flowers line the boardwalks.

If you have flowers, you have hummingbirds!

We took a drive by Lake San Cristobal where we saw our first bear of the season!  It's just a beautiful area here. No wonder why so many folks love to come spend the summer here.

Lake San Cristobal

These bears can move fast! So glad he moved away from us and not toward us!

Isn't that rain shower beautiful?

Well that's it for these 4 days off. We did end our day off with a Mexican pot luck dinner at the park.  This is such a wonderful place to be, filled with so many wonderful, caring folks. We are truly enjoying!  Until next time...….