More sheeps!!!!!
We’ve spent two weeks here in Durango at a wonderful park, United Campgrounds of Durango. The park is tucked on a hill leading down to the tracks that run the train from Durango to Silverton and surrounded by farming/ranch land and beautiful hills across the valley. Our only complaint is the set up has rig doors facing each other, so when you sit outside and your neighbor sits outside, you are basically sitting together 🙄. My dogs especially don’t care for this set up. (Ed. Note – I moved into this thing to get away from people!!! This ain’t helping!!!!) Otherwise, it’s a lovely place and we’d definitely stay here again (we’ll ask for an end site that doesn’t face the neighbors).
Now that’s a lot of sheeps!!!!!!!
The first weekend, we drove over to Bayfield, about 30 minutes away to see the 22nd Annual Sheep Trailing! The Lasater family brought their sheep home from their high summer grazing pastures to their home in the valley. They wanted to share this wonder with their Bayfield community and the sheep trailing tradition began in 2000. The entire town is involved in the event with a dinner the night before (when Covid is not around) and then the sheep trailing at 9:00 am Saturday morning. After that, a “people” parade including the high school marching band, fire department, children and others, then vendors set up at the park. (Ed. Note – Weird, this time there are more sheeps than people!!!)
People are sheep!!!!
People line the street and wait for the sheep! There were probably over a thousand sheep, quite a few sheep “drivers” and two big dogs to keep them in line. Sheep are easily frightened animals – if they see people in their way, they start turning around and try to go back where they came from – thank goodness for the dogs that kept them off people’s yards (mostly) and moving forward. It was delightful to be part of it and exciting to see all the people around, who like me, couldn’t wait to see the sheep! By the way, this time I stayed on the curb and did not get my feet stepped on 😁.
Tucked in a little valley!!!!!
After that adventure, we decided to drive from Durango to Silverton which is known for its beautiful vistas. The leaves have just started turning in Durango but many had changed already as we went further into the mountains. We drove past Purgatory Resort and stopped at several beautiful spots for pictures.
Coming down the mountain, we could see Silverton down in the valley. Silverton is an old mining town which does a lot of tourism now. Lots of fun shops and restaurants all around.
Is that Tom Hanks!?!?!?!?!
On a knitting note – remember that yellow shrug I’ve knitted up twice now? One too small and one too big? Yeah… I spent a night last week unraveling the too big sweater and ended up with 4 very curly balls of yarn. After thinking about it a bit, I decided the thing to do was put it into hanks (for those that don’t know what a hank is, editor, talking to you), a hank is a twisty bundle of yarn. I washed the four hanks and let them dry on clothes hangers for several days – mainly because it was raining and took a while to dry. I was finally able to put them on the swift and wind them into center pull cakes today. I guess I’ll start that dang sweater again. This time in the size that the pattern calls for… (Ed. Note – Maybe it’ll be done next year)
Now this is more like it!!!!! No sheeps are stepping on toes here!!!!!
Another fun thing we did in Durango is go play disc golf at the Fort Lewis College campus. The campus sits high up on a hill above Durango. The 18 hole disc golf course is set in the middle of the top of a mesa with fairly steep sloping sides. It was a fun course to play – full of pinon and juniper trees – many blocking the baskets!!
I do think the junipers have made me quite sneezy this last week though. And this is what we saw when we were leaving the course! A couple of mule deer!
Beautiful pictures!