Great Sand Dunes/ Mesa Verde/ Four Corners

Jeannette and I had planned to spend last night preparing for the trip.... but we ended up playing poker instead at the Outback.  ;-)  It was an opportunity for her to meet some of the people I hang out with and play in the tournament.  She did really well!  We only stayed for the first round, though, so we could get home in time to do the packing we had planned to do earlier.

Well, that didn't really happen and we ended up gabbing until...well... late.  So, we decided to finish packing early in the morning.

So here it is, early on Wednesday morning, and we're not really packed yet.  ;-)   However, we had planned what we needed to bring so it didn't take all that long to get everything together.  After eating a bit of breakfast, we packed up the car and headed to the gas station to fill up the tank and get ice.  Of course, once I got to the gas station I realized that I forgot __________ so we had to go back to the apartment.  After all was said and done, we got on the road around 10:45 a.m.

The weather was beautiful and sunny so the drive was especially scenic.  I drove first to give Jeannette a chance to look at the mountains and take some video footage.

  We stopped several times in the first few hours just to admire the mountains, rushing water, lush green trees, etc.

We stopped in Durango (?) for lunch at Dairy Queen and treated ourselves to a couple of monster burgers AND ice cream for dessert.  I left feeling like a roly-poly elephant when we left!!  We drove for several more hours and finally reached Cortez around 7:00 p.m. (?).  It's a small little town so I figured we'd find the hotel pretty easily.  Wrong!  The main street that runs through town is not the same name that is provided on the instructions to get there.  And, as luck would have it, the hotel's sign was still listing it's former name (Anasazi Inn).  Fortunately, I had stumbled on to the fact that it had been renamed but that had happened months before.  And the sign still hadn't been changed!  Nonetheless, we found our destination and checked in.  It was a cute and unassuming little place.  But it was central to where we needed to be, the price was right, and it was comfortable.  Win, Win.  Plus they even provided us with a coupon for free breakfast entrées at their adjacent restaurant.  We were all set!