Colorado's Country Roads
Cortez, Colorado was a great home base for us. Not only was it within 1-2 hours driving distance of a lot of stuff (Mesa Verde, Canyon of the Ancients, Arches, Canyonlands, and much more), but it also was rather pretty driving.
We also feel compelled to share how impressed we were with the town of Cortez. They have big public parks, a pool & rec center, high speed internet, biking trails, a great public radio station, a local theater...not bad for a town of 8,500 people. (We also discovered Osprey - the makers of great backpacks - has their operations facility in Cortez!)
Anyway, here's a bit of what we saw while driving the backroads around Cortez.
Agriculture makes up a big part of the economy — half of which is related to cattle and cattle feed.
There are LOTS of horses in the area. Sadly, this one looks a little worse for wear.
Wild sunflowers were along the roadside all over the area.
Ravens.
Deer are also everywhere.
Can you spot the deer? (He went deep trying to get away from my camera!)
It appears they got ahead of themselves with this development..they even built the guard house! (Trust us there's nothing but empty fields on this estate.)
Lots and lots of cows...happily, it doesn't smell like it!
Lots of these...in our yard.
Road 25...they don't go for fancy creative street names around here. Numbers and letters are about it, except for downtown, where they go for names like "Mildred" and "Main".
Road G - on the way to Hovenweep.
Road G - changes from irrigated agricultural land...to something close to the Painted Desert..in only a matter of miles.