Yes, life is good

 Well, after driving over 1300 miles in 4 days, I am finally back home and reunited with my girls. The drive home was so much better than the one going over, yet is wasn't much fun. It is so hard to leave the area around Ouray...... it holds you like a bear trap. The beauty of the mountains is unlike anywhere else. Sure Utah has some awesome vistas, and Idaho too, but no where else I know comes close to Ouray! The sad thing is, fotos do not do it justice. You have to see it to believe it. Above I tried to frame the Jeeps with Red mountain as a background. Its an OK foto, but in real life..... it kicked ass!

 This foto of Bridal veil falls also is a good one..... but real life is better. You can get within 50 yards of them at the bottom and as you stand there, you can feel the drops almost like rain. It cools you off and feels so good. It attracts the attention of many tourists. Black Bear pass ends on this road. From the service road that goes to the power plant and down is 2 way traffic. There were cars and trucks parked all over the road as people hiked over to see it from the top. Thank heavens its one way above that road or they would be parking up there too. Some day I will take the hike over to the top and see what cool sites there are. I saw a road as we went up Imogene that goes up the valley from the power plant. It would be fun to take it and see how far it goes up that valley.

 With the altitudes of the mountains around Ouray, spring flowers don't bloom till late July and they were out in full force. I would have loved to had the time to go out among them and take more fotos, but this was a limited time trip so that wasn't part of the plan. I took a few shots from the road and this one was the best. It's such a great sight to see mountain sides and valley's covered in spring time blooms. Sea's of purple, blue, red and yellow flowers, like a carpet covering a square foot to an acre or more for any ones pleasure to gaze upon. The wildlife you can see is also incredible. We saw lots of deer and chipmunks, but my favorite were the Rock chucks. They wander about and sun themselves on rocks like they are tourists too. Years ago on our first trip to Ouray,we were walking among some old mining buildings with some older ladies from Indiana. I was filming everything when all of the sudden there was a horrible scream. We raced out of the building and a rock chuck was observing one of them. It freaked her out! We laughed so hard, we almost peed are pants! Back then, Ouray was a quiet, peaceful town. Now its as crowded as Telluride and almost foreign feeling. The first few years we visited, we hardly saw anything but Jeeps on the trails and a few motorcycles. This weekends trip was like a freeway in Los Angeles. We dodged every type of ATV out there along with motorcycles and even mountain bikers who believed they owned the trail. The well kept secret of Ouray is out. So sad! The trip did end on a funny note. An older couple in their 70's were gawking at my Jeep as we came out out of a store. I told them I charged a fee for looking..... they laughed and the lady asked " did you drive that here like that''? (meaning no doors or top) I said I sure did. The old man asks " what do you do if it rains?" I looked at him seriously and said " I get wet"!
Jeep on my friends!