Beginnings Start with Endings

Every new beginning starts with some type of ending. For Philip and I, that meant having a party, relocating our pets and moving out of our house in Bryan Flats. With direction from Robyne and help from Heather, Susanne, John and Jeannie the party was a piece of cake. Relocating pets was emotional, but we feel they are happy with their new families. Packing was another animal all together. At one point it seemed as if there would be no end to the boxes. However, with help from Guy and some friends we managed to fit everything into our storage units.

Our first destination was Bear Lake, Utah. We camped at Rendezvous State Park. The advantage of traveling off-season is that we nearly had the place to ourselves. Beautiful setting, but I would skip it in the summer because of the crowds and the high number of motorized boats.

We had our first roadside overnight experience just south of Moab. The sound dampening material in the van worked and we had a very comfortable night at the rest stop.

By the fourth night we reached our destination- Grand Gulch in SE Utah, known for its Anasazi ruins. The mesa is beautiful with few visitors. Absolutely wonderful free campsites overlooking the San Juan River valley. We arrived in time for a fabulous sunset followed by a full moon. After two nights on the mesa, we strapped on our backpacks hiking Kane Gulch through to Bullet Canyon for 23 miles over three days. This route contains many Anasazi ruin sites. The hike was difficult due to prior heavy rains and thick vegetation. Route finding was a challenge at times and we were fortunate to have a set of foot prints to follow. All in all it was a good trip, but we would recommend hiking in for day or one night from both trail heads and skipping the middle section of the hike.

From there we headed south to Bluff, Utah to restock. Bluff is more of a village than a town. Its "claim to fame" is the San Juan and the many river trips that start there. We did have a good dinner at the Cottonwood Steakhouse and a great quad-shot latte the next morning before leaving for Durango.

Love Durango! Wonderful campground, Junction Creek, just north of town in the San Juan National Forest.

Please be patient as I learn to manage the blog. Working from an iPad limits some of the Blogger functions.

Happy Trails!