Day 6....Half Blood Prince

Good Morning All,

Got up at 6 A.M. with 8 hours sleep I feel so good today, amazing what sleep will do for you, 51 degrees outside. Harry Potter Day! Finished breakfast at our favorite cafe and now on up into the mountains to explore some more. Jim and Bobbie suggested the Upper Beaver Creek area just south of South Fork.

Went to Million Reservoir, saw where some big game had bedded down for the night. Million Reservoir is a small lake high in the mountains just south and east of South Fork. Just make the turn off of Highway 160 South where it says Apple Dumpling Bed and Breakfast and follow the road to the right. What surprises await you. We pulled into the parking lot and starting hiking to the North up and over rock and tree roots then down to a small meadow and the path is just a foot path that leads to the waters edge and around the lake.
This is the scene that greeted us when we got down to the shore of the lake. Who could not love this?
There were ducks out on the lake lazily paddling around feeding. There were some hikers off in the distance. The water was so clear. The wild flowers leading up to the lake were just dazzling. After getting back to the car we then decided to follow the road on up to
the Upper Beaver Reservoir 4 miles higher up in the mountains and captured this picture on the way back. There are camping sites all along the road. I love camping in the tall pines. Something about it is very relaxing. After coming down off the mountain we decided to head on back over to Pagosa Springs this time we stopped at the Scenic turnout to take some pictures.

If you look closely you can see a gargoyles head in the center foreground. To the left in the foreground are hoodoos. I learned about Hoodoos when I went to Canada for the first time back in '73. They are created by wind and rain and the only thing that keeps them from fading away is the stone cap on the top so they are very fragile.
In this shot it is a long ways down and if you happen to make a misstep... apparently someone did and we found a flower memorial stuck in the fence. How sad. The fencing is in need of repair there. I think they need more fencing around the area. A lot of the area us unprotected. But the view is spectacular.

As you can see Dave went on up into the unprotected accessible area to capture this picture of the hoodoo's. Amazing how a tree can exist with no soil and bare rock.

We then stopped at Treasure Falls just down the highway about 2 or so miles. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM6HD be sure to scroll down to read the story of why it's called Treasure Falls. Dave hiked 800 feet up to just below the falls to shoot pictures. I said I would not go as I did not have on hiking boot but sandals instead. But I surprised him and showed up at the observation deck where he was. He was shocked, he didn't think I would come. It is a strenuous hike. I had to stop quite a few times to catch my breath. But of course I am way out of shape. Need to do more hiking. It is good you. Treasure Falls is a neat place, lots of little animals and birds and forest to look at. There are lots of signs that say to stay on the path and to not take short cuts as it distroys the underpinning of the path, but it is interesing to see the adults ignore them and take shortcuts anyways. No wonder kids do what they do when they have such role models. We took our time coming back down the trail, as Dave wanted to get some different kinds of shots with the camera. He was playing with the Macro lens for flowers and fauna.

Notice my hiking shoes and with socks no less. A fashion faux paux according to my daughter.
On our way down we stopped so Dave could take my picture and a very nice gentleman asked if he could take the picture for us and we said yes. As it turns out he is a Forrester from Arizona and he was commenting on how this particular area of forest was dying and without fire it would not renew its self, that basically, man was killing it by not allowing it to burn. He said the forest was about 100 years old. Very interesting guy, to bad I did not get his name. The Forrester also told us that the cankers that you see on this tree indicates that you don't want to put a chainsaw to it as it will collapse on you. Apparently it's already hollow and very dangerous. he actually said not to even touch it as it could collapse on you.

We went on into Pagosa Springs and stopped by the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church that I had seen the day we went to the Hot Springs. I noticed a little courtyard that looked like it had statues in it. So we had to make the stop at the church to see the statues.

Dave circled the block to find a parking spot and we went into the courtyard. It had about 20" high bronze statues of the stations of the cross. They were beautiful. It is very peacefun in the garden, quite lovely.

We then went into the vestibule of the church, an Adoration service was in progress so Dave shot the body of the church through the windows in the doors of the vestibule. I thought that the etched hands in the glass of the doors made a rather interesting picture.

We found another parking spot closer to the downtown area and went to the 3 o'clock showing of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" in the old Liberty Theatre that was an old hotel that had been turned into several businesses on of them the theatre. As usual it was great. After the show we headed back to the campground stopping at the Branding Iron Bar-B-Que Restaurant 3 miles North on Hwy. 160 from Pagosa Springs. The food was excellent, you must try the marinated carrot salad. Yum! I learned all about the many uses of a bandana. This lists at least 50 uses for the bandana.

http://www.trailwatch.net/northrim/bandanas.html The little buckeroos get to sit on a little saddle to eat their meal. Met another Oklahoma family there at the restauraunt. The young man said that he had never seen so many "Okies" as there were this year. It must be the heat that is driving them to the cool mountains. We got back to South Fork just in time to make it before the Rainbow grocery store closed to pick up a few items and some firewood. Got back to camp, the sunset was spectacular. We had a lively discussion about the Potter movie wondering what the girl and our son-in-law would have to say about it. It started raining but just for a few minutes. That's the way it is in the mountains. Almost time for bed....missed seeing our deer this evening.

Amore & Arrivederci For Now