Internet! Finally! Now I can catch up on all the stuff I follow, and you can get more, um... "expert" advice from Grandpa! It also means more pictures!

So, we've been going through Colorado the last few days, and Verizon must not like that state very much, because we had no service for most of our time there. We started off on the 19th by leaving Bayfield and stopping in Durango for a few hours and riding the scenic train up to Silverton. The train was started to haul silver, but the view was better than the silver! In fact, it's only recently that silver mines have started getting refurbished to start mining again, and for now Silverton is just a tourist town. It's also a high tourist town. Durango is about 6500 feet above sea level, and after the three hour, forty-two mile train ride to Silverton, we had gained 2800 feet, which put us at 9300 feet above sea level. That was high enough for the tempture to drop so low that it started snowing. In the middle of May. I guess they haven't heard of this wonderful thing known as "Spring!"

Grandpa decided that he didn't like that at all, and we soon went to get lunch out of the snow, which stopped soon after. As soon as we finished, guess what? It started snowing again! Anyway, we braved through it, and saw all the sites the town had to see, which weren't many.

We got some souvenirs, and some fudge, then headed back down the mountain on the bus. We decided that  there wasn't enough to see in Durango to justify staying for any longer, so we headed to our next destination, Mesa Verde, with a stop along the way at Four Corners.

 It was too late to see anything in the park, so we set up and slept there. The next day, we fount that it was full of steep mesas and old houses built into the rock, and after I went on a guided tour and both of us went on a self guided tour, we decided that we knew about the same as the rangers there. That's not an insult to them, by the way, it's just that there are so few facts about them that anyone knows.

It was twenty miles from the park to the campground, so with all the twisty roads, it takes about forty-five minutes to get to the important stuff. When we had finished seeing everything, we went to dinner nearby. It was at a "county kitchen," so we hoped it would have some good, homemade southern food. Their roast beef and gravy was alright, but we didn't like the lack of sweet tea or black eyed peas. Anyway, we needed to get a few things at the local Walmart, and after doing that, we headed back to the campground.

We got up the next morning and headed to Monument Valley. It was less of a valley and more of several-mesas-together-that-looked-like-a-valley-between-them. After going on the seventeen mile dirt road around most of the park, we decided that we had seen enough big rocks in the middle of the desert. Besides that, our backsides hurt too much to consider doing it again!

We stayed in the closest thing to a town they had there, which was the original Indian trading post, except grown much bigger, and complete with its own fire station and medical center. It had wifi, but the signal was so horrible that we could hardly do anything on it. I think the hotspot itself was in the hotel on the other side of the mesa.

So today, we mostly traveled. Not much to see, except more big desert rocks. After going many miles through basically nothing, we made it to Page, Arizona. If you look at the map, nearby Lake Powell and Powell Dam are on the Colorado River, which means we're getting closer to the Grand Canyon! That's where we'll be heading tomorrow. We spent most of the afternoon getting ready, since as far as we can tell, there's not much in the was of campsites along our route for the next couple of hundred miles. That probably also means not much Internet, so our next post will come again in a few days, and with plenty of pictures!

If that post is as long as this one, then Grandpa might have to do it. :D

-Dennis