Rain, rain, rain..and other stories

 It's Tuesday afternoon, and I'm watching the rain come down in sheets.  Even though Mke and I worked outside this morning on accumulating firewood, I'm still feeling a bit boxed in.  It's hard to believe it's already July, and we've not done much porch sitting...too cold or too rainy.  Remind me next month how I was whining here.

On Saturday, I finally got to see the dinosaur tracks at the top of the Silvershields Trail.  You might remembr we tried to do it last fall, I think, and when we encountered a big tree that had fallen over the trail, it freaked out Dempsey for some unknown reason.  Mike, Mirabella, and I got over it pretty quickly, but he just couldn't, so we had to come down.  This time, the OTG had taken care of everything on the trail a few months back, and we were able to get to the top.  Oh, my, the tracks are so worth the effort to get up, about 4.5 miles round trip.  There aren't a lot of wildflowers, enough to keep me happy, but the forest is lush.

Each of the tracks had water in them from rain.
Mirabella and Dempsey took advantage.

Mirabella and Dempsey struggled on the way down, wanting to stop and rest more than normal.  I think a hard hike on Thursday and then another on Saturday, with only one day of rest in between, is a bit much for two nine-year-old dogs, lesson learned.  They love hiking so much that it's hard leaving them at home, but we'll just have to.

Dempsey resting in the shade and cool grass.
He's no dummy

On Sunday, we drove over to Silverton (a) because we love the pass, and (b) we wanted to see what it looked like full of tourists.  You won't be surprised when I tell you January and July in Silverton make it look like two different towns.  The Durango-Silverton narrow gauge was in town - steam engine and all - and the place was crawling with people, and all the stores and restaurants were open.  

Yesterday, Mike and I went to the 4th of July parade downtown.  Neither of us remembers why we didn't go last year.  We had heard that if we didn't want to get wet, we should be on the east side of the street.  I'm not sure I knew what to expect, maybe some Super Soakers on floats, but, wow, I wasn't even close.  The theme of the parade, one would imagine, would be the 4th of July, but it's actually water, and "wet" doesn't even begin to describe it.  Soaked would be better.

Afterwards, we wandered down to the Western Hotel, where a "free barbecue" had been advertised.  We got to peek in the front doors - they're getting there - but we chose not to stand in line for a pork slider.  Then we went to the Silver Eagle Saloon, which is on Main Street and open odd hours.  Mike has really been wanting to go in and see what it's about.  It's a bar, no food, no beer on tap, but a pool table and foosball table.

The stuffed mountain lion in the Western Hotel bar.  

And last night, when Mike and the Fikkerts were getting ready to head up Veenstras trail to watch fireworks, they stopped to ask Becky and Mark if it was okay to drive up the road.   That's when they found out that both of them had contracted covid.  Such a bummer!  They were experiencing cold symptoms with a sore throat, kind of the standard symptoms anymore.  

Wow, too long of a post.  I'm done.