Month: August 2025

August 21, 2025

Hello and Howdy folks from the heavenly San Juan mountains in southwest Colorado! Yes, we are currently at our beloved campground, Priest Gulch, located about 40 miles south of Telluride, deep in the San Juan mountains. You’ve heard me say it before, and I’ll say it again… this place really is a slice of heaven to us. We love the area, we love the abundant hiking all around, we love the huge mountain vistas…I could go on and on, but you get the idea!

Priest Gulch campground remains our hands down favorite campground for all the above reasons and more. It’s been here for a couple of generations and is still family run. Everybody is super nice. I was talking to a fellow camper the other day and he summed it up…”you can’t have a bad day at Priest Gulch”. I couldn’t agree more. Oh and did I mention – they have soft serve ice cream cones (we have had a few vanilla chocolate twists!) and, they serve homemade cinnamon rolls on Saturday mornings??? Somehow it just doesn’t seem possible to come back from a nice long hike and not swing by the office for a cone! Gerry loves them too 😊

We’re here for the month of August. We wish it was longer but we’re lucky to get what we did this year. We’re already booked for 3 months next summer. This year, we are staying directly on the river. We have a back in site that overlooks the Dolores River, which runs right through the middle of the campground. They have a bridge connecting the two sides of the campground over the river. We’ve never had a spot here on the river before and we’re loving it. We can hear the river through the windows day and night. The sunlight sparkling on the river as the sun rises over the mountain and trees in the morning is beautiful. This year the river is really low – they had a lighter than normal snow season this past winter. The trout fishers are all reporting the low water level is making it impossible to catch anything. We’re all hoping for lots of snow here this winter!

So what have we been doing besides soaking up all this natural beauty? Hiking, farmers markets, eating, exploring. Not necessarily in that order! Since we’ve been here several times before, we have enjoyed going back to favorite places. Telluride is always a great day trip, and we love taking Gerry on the Gondola. He’s always a hit with the other travelers and he loves the attention.

There’s several options nearby for farmers markets and we are frequent visitors! Did you know Colorado is known for their peaches? And sweet corn? Yup – Palisades peaches and Olathe sweet corn are a big deal around here, for good reason. We’ve dutifully taste tested dozens of each just to be sure the reputation is justified, and it is! I’ve even put several bags of frozen peaches and corn in our RV freezer, along with cherries we found a couple of weeks ago. We are doing our part for the local economy!

Of course we’ve been hiking as well. You guys know how much we love a day spent on the trail! There’s been a wildfire nearby that has caused some smoke filled skies a couple of afternoons, but otherwise it hasn’t interfered with anything we’ve wanted to do. We were worried at first that it may force us to evacuate but it’s not moving our direction and it seems to be staying contained up on a mesa way back in the mountains about 20 miles from us. So we’ve been hitting the trails as much as we can.

I’ve put together some pictures and videos of some of our recent hikes. Of course, the photos never capture the majestic beauty, but I keep trying!

Videos from a couple of hikes:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/syzcj9grqXr1dLQt9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sgUvdMehTC5EjeG17

https://photos.app.goo.gl/fSwxfias7yEg3ESq7

Photos:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ScWbCxeCv7FgtKSs6

We hope everyone is having a great summer and stay tuned for the next post which will likely be from our next destination, Chama, New Mexico.

We continue to be really happy with our new RV and it feels like home.

August 3, 2025

Hello, Hello! As I write this post, we are enjoying our second day at our most beloved campground, Priest Gulch, between Dolores and Telluride, Colorado. I’ll have more to share about that soon, I’m sure. But first, let’s get caught up on our last couple of weeks which were spent in Ridgeway.

We love the Ridgeway, Colorado area. We’ve been there a few times before. It’s probably the most picturesque place we have stayed at from a dramatic mountain scenery everywhere you look stand point. We stayed again at the Ridgeway State Park – this is a really nice state park, the RV sites are generously sized and it has lots of walking paths, a river, a couple of fishing ponds, a big reservoir for boating. And it’s a good base camp for all the hiking and sight seeing the area has to offer.

Ridgeway is also where the John Wayne movie, “True Grit” was filmed in the late 1960s. There’s still several buildings in town that were featured in the movie, and we actually hiked right through where most of the “landscape” scenes were filmed, where they were riding through the mountains and countryside. Of course, we watched the movie while there and it was pretty cool recognizing locations and knowing we were there too.

I took this photo out of the window of the truck while Steve was driving … this is the view from the state park where we stayed and on the way into the small town of Ridgeway. I know it’s not a great photo but it gives you an idea of what I mean by the dramatic scenery all around – this was our daily view. Not too bad! This is why we keep coming back to southwest Colorado!

We again visited the very pretty town of Ouray – they call it the “Switzerland of America” and it’s clear why – it’s literally surrounded by tall mountains and has a lot of German or Swiss architecture. I’ve included pictures below of Ouray, but as usual, it’s impossible to capture in pictures what it really looks like. We really enjoy being tourists for a day in these cute little mountain towns. Breakfast at a nice cafe or coffee shop, shopping, exploring. A great day as far as we’re concerned 😊

Another favorite spot we always visit in the area is the Orvis Hot Springs. There’s several hot springs in the area, but this one is our favorite. It’s been there for something like 90 years, has beautiful gardens and landscaping all around several natural pools made of stone and rocks. It’s also clothing optional – and for some reason I find soaking in the hot springs “in the buff” really great! Steve still hasn’t tried it without his swim trunks, I don’t think he realizes what he’s missing… I surprised myself a few years ago when I gave it a try and have been a convert ever since! So there’s a secret out in the open now!! 😁

And of course we have been hiking! We returned to a few favorite trails in the area and they did not disappoint! Many pictures from our hikes in the photos below.

So now we’re all caught up! We moved to Priest Gulch on August 1st, and we’ll be here until September 1st. I can’t wait to share our adventures here soon – meanwhile, enjoy the pictures and videos and please call or text us! We love hearing from you all!

Hiking around Ridgeway, Colorado:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/m27LDpPSwyEiT3sT9

Ouray, Colorado:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/gLjUrpBUPdogrbww5

Videos from the area:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UmmWXwnhM9X19nuL7