Durango

Friday, May 12

We left home about 9:30am. Fairly light traffic through Denver.
For lunch we stopped at Obie's Fillin' Station Bar-b- que joint just off I-25 in Colorado City. We had a great lunch. One of the best ever bar-b-que lunches.
Tonight we're camped at the Smith Lake SWA in Blanca. 7,721'. Right on the lake with a view to the north of three 14ers, and to the east of the Spanish Peaks.

37.38948 -105.54086

Saturday/Sunday

We stayed at the FS Junction Creek campground about 15 minutes from downtown Durango. To our surprise, the 42 site campground was almost full when we arrived and schools  not even out. Wonder if this is a harbinger of what's to come with this  summers camping?
On Mother's Day we got up super early and went to breakfast at Oscar's. We've been there before.

Monday
The weather forecast for Silverton, our next planned stop north, is dismal starting on Wednesday. Very cold with snow. This morning I was able to get the only nonreservable site in the section with electric hookups. We'll stay here until the storm passes.
We took a nice drive looking for future disbursed camping ideas then had lunch at Oscars.

Tuesday
Took a drive up to Lemon Lake looking for future camping sites. We found some nice areas but there is no cell phone service and you are a long way from anywhere. The sites we found yesterday off of US 160 west of Durango were much nicer.
Had a few snow flurries tonight.

Wednesday
Drove along La Plata Canyon Road looking at all the FS disbursed camping areas. There were some very nice ones. We noted the coordinates for future trips. It snowed a little near the top.
The weather is still dreary with the late, and hopefully last, Spring storm.
We decided to extend out stay here until at least Saturday. It's snowing in Silverton.

Thursday
Woke up to snow. We're extending our stay here until it warms up in the Silverton area.

Friday
We drove to Silverton to see what Mineral Creek Rd was all about. Snow and mud. Along the entire road there was one camper that we saw. Our favorite site had about 6" of snow on top of mud. The Jeep did just fine but the camper would not. It will be several days, or longer, before the camping spot we like is dry. Had lunch at the Rocky Mountain Funnel Cake restaurant. We shared the Mexican funnel cake which is essentially a Navajo Taco then a Black Forest funnel cake. Both were just super.

We discussed where to head next and ruled out Silverton because of the mud.

Beautiful Silverton

Along Mineral Creek Rd. near our favorite spot.

We're going to head towards Buena Vista instead. Warmer and no snow.
The late spring storm messed up our plans. Oh well, so it goes.

Saturday.
Nothing special at all.
Heading out in the morning.