Go West: Day Five

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

We woke up early (as I had been doing nearly every morning—I never did completely accept that two-hour time difference), had a quick breakfast, and loaded our stuff into Donnell’s truck for the trip back to the airport. This time we weren’t catching a plane. We were picking up a rental car.

Note to those in charge at Colorado Springs Airport: You need better signage directing folks to Rental Car PICK-UPs. All the signs said Rental Car Returns. In case you haven’t figured it out, I am not a frequent flyer, so I didn’t know you had to go inside the terminal for that.

After we finally concluded we needed to do just that, Donnell dropped me off at the door and made a loop while I went inside to get my keys. Then she picked me up, and we headed back to the Rental Car Returns lot.

At home, both Hubby and I drive Saturns. Old Saturns. With manual transmissions and cranks for the windows. On this vacation, I decided to travel through the mountains and deserts in comfort. We got a Ford Edge, tricked out to the max. NICE wheels!

After some big hugs, Hubby and I said farewell and thanks to our wonderful Colorado hostess Donnell Bell and headed south.

Like I said, the car was NICE. Except we could have used some instruction. We had to pull over and take ten minutes just to learn how to adjust the side mirrors. But by 8:00 AM we were seriously on our way. Hubby drove for a little over an hour. During that time, I captured some photos through the window.

But he soon decided he wasn’t comfortable driving that car (something about it didn’t “fit” him).  Since I was VERY comfortable driving it, I took over as pilot the remainder of the trip.

We crossed Wolf Creek Pass and stopped at a scenic overlook. The wind about knocked me backwards, but the view was worth the hazard to get some photos.

Including one of our “new car.”

Let me tell you about my friend, Leta. We’ve become best friends on Facebook in recent years. We either chat there or text at least two or three times a day. For almost a full year we’d been counting down months, weeks, days, and hours until we’d finally meet face-to-face. That epic meeting finally happened at our agreed upon spot (the McDonalds parking lot in Aztec, New Mexico) at 3:30 PM on Tuesday, June 11. If you felt something akin to an earthquake at that time, now you know why. Alas, there are no photos of this momentous event because the photographer (me) was too busy laughing and crying to be bothered with handing over the camera to Hubby.

Once we composed ourselves, we drove the final 20 miles to Navajo Dam where we had reservations at Abe’s Fly Shop and Motel. I kid you not. It was… QUAINT. And rustic. But it was minutes from some of the best fishing in the world. And if you remember from my post about Saturday and my dream of riding a horse out there, you know Hubby’s big dream was fly fishing in the West. The next few days were HIS. So Abe’s was just fine and dandy.

Here are a few shots from the dam itself. First the lake.

Then the San Juan River in all its fly fishing glory.

Tomorrow: Sightseeing and turquoise buying in northern New Mexico.