Bye Bye Montrose; New Town, New Pueblo (Mile 3,039, Trail Mile 92.39)

In case you couldn't tell from my previous post, we were ready to wipe the dust of Montrose from our feet. The town served its purpose, but it was time to go. In a happy coincidence, we were leaving what was, so far, our least favorite stop, and heading to one of my all-time favorite places in the whole world: Santa Fe, New Mexico. To make matters even better, we were making this our longest stop thus far (2 weeks). To make matters even even better, we were stopping along the way at Mesa Verde National Park, one of the grand dames of the National Park System and the first National Park intended to protect not a beautiful natural feature but a human cultural site.

The only downside was that, given the pandemic, you weren't allowed to enter any of the famous cliff dwellings. Give that, and the fact that we had a long drive, we made this a pretty quick stop. However, it was still an amazing opportunity to get a small taste of the amazing history of the ancient Pueblo cultures of the Southwest.

After a quick lunch stop in Durango, we spent the next six hours or so suffering through the endless nothing that is Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. It was a long day, but in the end we finally saw the city lights of Santa Fe. And everything was better.