When we first arrived we had elevensies in Turtle and watched a teen girl’s softball tournament; that was great, and the best part of Steamboat as far as we could see, since the town seems to be mostly about boutique shopping and real estate, neither of which interest us. The weather was deteriorating by the minute and we were told not to attempt Rabbit Ears pass after 3pm. We looked all over town for unsecured wi fi and failed, went to the overcrowded library (bad weather drives active people into the library) and finally decided on such a day there was nothing for us in Steamboat. We decided we’d try the pass and give Steamboat a chance another day. We had wet snow and slush at the top, but nothing to worry Turtle. Not what I had in mind for my birthday, but things improved on the other side of the pass. We found a fine quiet boondock in Walden, along our original Zippy (tandem bicycle) route around the U.S. in 1995, and shared memories of that very special time in our lives. We has a special dinner and slept well.
June?

June 8, we met with disappointment in the fading village of Cowdrey.
The small coffee shop/music shop/ lunch place we were hoping to enjoy again, had made it until three years ago and failed. On another cold June day in 1995, after an even colder pass from Wyoming, we’d found steaming mugs of herbal tea, a radiant woodstove, some cakes, wonderful classic jazz and the conversation of a lovely 17 year old girl, about to be married and head off to college. It was nothing special really, but somehow, at the right moment in the early stages of our first big adventure together, memorable, very memorable. Now we wish we could know where the parents went, did the girl’s marriage go well, was college a success for them, did they indeed move to West Virginia? We’ll never know, like so many lives that have somehow enriched us, we’ll never know the rest of the story; but maybe that’s not so bad, we can write our own: the girl and her new husband moved to West Virginia for cheap land and cheap education and found both. But soon, he found the hills oppressive compared to the openness of the West. She began a garden and learned to quilt, set down roots. They began to fight… No I don’t like that beginning. Needs work.

We parked at an overlook near the top of Douglas pass, and after a run-in with a curious cow butting Turtle on the grill, had a peaceful, cool night in aspen country. The next day we spent the morning of June 4, hiking and photographing Freemont rock art of Canyon Pintado for a future story. Then we drove to Dinosaur National Monument Canyon Area visitor center and decided to explore the Harpers Corner road and hike the trail to the Green/Yampa River overlook, a truly spectacular vista of colorful rocks and deep gorges. It was nice to change the sagebrush juniper scents for the pitchy scent of pinon pine and crisp air of 7,000 feet. There were new wildflowers, or perhaps stunted versions of familiar ones; the globe mallow that grows to four feet in Tucson and was maybe four inches here. I would consider this canyon section of Dinosaur NP to be a real hidden gem of the park system. Most people go to the Vernal, Utah entrance where the dino bones are kept, and though nice, it is not as spectacular or remote in feeling as the Canyon District. Having BLM nearby for bush camping is a plus.

At the overlook we conversed with a pleasant couple from Virginia out for a fast-paced three-month trip in their new class-c. When the subject turned to age, the man and I (we expect an email with their id’s any day) turned out to have the same birth date of 6.7.44, or the day after D-day, the beginning of the end of WWII. Neither of us had ever met anyone born on that day, so we posed for our wives. After that long busy day, we found a county road onto BLM land, drove a couple of miles and had yet another million dollar view for a bush camp (boondocks are in parking lots or on main road, bush camps are hidden on public lands). We had some spectacular clouds that had us wondering about getting stuck, but got only a few sprinkles. The cows left Turtle alone.

BLM bush camp among the sagebrush and cows. Clouds provided only a few sprinkles, thankfully.