Up and at 'em at the crack of 10 am this morning. No one was feeling particularlly inspired to hit the bricks. We headed north and decided to take a brief detour to Mesa Verde. By brief, I mean 3 hours! It is becoming very clear that we do not go anywhere fast, in a hurry, under the gun or even close to on time.

At Mesa Verde, we found cold. Like the really, really cold, holy cow, run from the parking lot into the visitor center cold. And snow. The kids loved the snow. But as you can see from the wonderful outfits we have put together, we really don't have all that great of a collection of cold weather gear. Jay Jay did try his hand at making snow balls and rolled up a big one. But found it was too wet and cold to actually throw at me as he had planned.

Mesa Verde was a treat. So we learned that the Ute clan were hunters and gather-ers and the pueblo people were farmers. Kids got their junior ranger badges (always a plus). The Cliff Palace was the perfect kid treat. Rickety wooden ladders, sandstone steps, tight crevices, no hand rails, steep cliffs. Bit of workout for me, watching them scamper independently into places I would much rather they not be. And since when is no handrails okay? The average life expectancy of the people who lived there was 30 for chicks, 40 for guys and only 50% of the children lived past the age of 3. Well, duh. Look at it.

Driving the RV at 7000 feet means fog. Allie was so happy that we were driving in the clouds. She was a little disappointed at how thin they are when you actually drive through them.

This has nothing to do with our trip, but Jay Jay has been developing these nick names. He was called two-bit after returning from Ohio with his crew cut. Then he adopted the nick name of Camel because he doesn't drink much water or take many bathroom breaks. This trip he has new one, we call him Lens Cap, due to his increased interest in using my camera and his uncanny habit of forgetting to take off the lens cap before he starts shooting.

We headed into Durango and got caught in some more snow flurry's. The kids tend to get lulled into sleep even on the shortest of drives, so we had to wake them for it. Growing up back in MI and OH, Jay and I are okay with it, but the kids were really concerned about the accumulation on the windshield and the chuncks sliding down the sides of the windows.

Durango is lovely. We are here on the Fort Collins Homecoming Weekend, so we were treated to a college parade, complete with 18-22 year old kids handing out candy. Oh my, 18-22 year olds are kids. And I know I am getting older, because I found myself thinking about these college kids out here for the parade, some of them bareback, without shoes and riding a skateboard being pulled by a car, with NO HELMETS. It is also heritage weekend, so we are also getting glimpes of the 35-60 year olds dressed in get-ups from the 1800's.

Tomorrow is our big ride to Silverton. STICKER SHOCK. The ride, round trip, for 3 hours of shopping in Silverton is $320.00. That's just to cover the seat on the train, and the train cars are not heated nor catered. I don't get it, but we hear this is one of things you've just gotta do. Recently added this to my bucket list. If it is going to cost that much, it makes the list by default.

We rounded out the evening at an Irish pub. Warm, local, friendly. Felt like we fit right in, lots of people out in their mis-matched, hodge podge winter wear. Don't want to come accross like the snobby Scottsdale-ians that we are. Our disguises worked perfectly.