….but not goodbye. I left Lake City this morning with a bit of a heavy heart. I fell in love with the town but mostly with the people. My new friends Dave (Dave has many claims to fame but one of them is that he once played with REO Speedwagon back in their heyday!) and his wife Joan took me out to dinner and to a bar for another extremely fun evening. After hugs and goodbyes and promises to see each other soon and even a tear or two, I closed up my little cabin and headed to Creede. Coming into Creede you can smell the smoke of the forest fires and see the staging an sleeping areas for the firefighters. A city of tents has been constructed. Everywhere you look there are signs thanking and blessing the heroes who saved their town. After a quiet and uneventful day of driving (to be honest, I might even say boring after the insane driving I did yesterday) I made it to the Spanish peaks along the Highway of Legends. The picture of the rock formation on the mountain is called the Devil’s Stair Steps. I’m camping just past Cuchara at Bear Lake. I just can’t find the lake!!!
I’ve learned a few things these past five days, and one of those life lessons is: always take the gravel road. It’s ALWAYS better.