Meeker

This is the last of my scheduled posts...I don't know where I will be on the 18th I may be HOME....when this posts, today in RT is 9/13..but I wanted to share my ride up to Meeker, on 9/11.   I stayed up late to get this done while I have internet access.  

This day I took Hwy 13 north to Meeker.

roadside views 

Moon peeks over the ridge

A rock window.

  I stopped at the mostly famous City Park.  BOY if you've been here before you will hardly recognize the place as they are in the middle of refurbishing it.  They allow camping in the this park, mostly it's tent spaces but they have one full hook ups spot...it's pretty popular so don't count on it being available. 

They have paved the parking lot, and put in this nice River Walk sidewalk with a diagram of the Flat Top Scenic Byway on it. Pretty cool!  

The river is the White River.  Elk hunting and trout fishing is really a big deal here so they sort of cater to the "sportsman".  

Had my picnic lunch here...

I saw lots of Barn Swallows in the picnic area...

And one Eastern Kingbird! More grey in color than the ones back home..

I took a walk up the hill by the river...

I drove out Hwy 8 towards Buford, my intended destination Avery Lakes but I turned around in Sleepy Cat...

By these 2 ponds...when I heard the thunder and saw the lightening in the distance where I had been heading, I decided to stop...because the road was a dirt road and if it rains, MY van will not cut it...
It can pour down in one area and the other stay dry as a bone...

I had these 2 beautiful ponds all to myself to explore so that is what I did...

At the end of this pond is an old Beaver's Lodge....


you can just see it in the distance on the right upper of this photo...I saw movement pretty far off on the other side of the ponds in these trees...if you look really close you see 2 white dots on tree tops! 

With a lot of trying finally got the zoom to move and got the following shots...

Tree number one, and farther down the line tree number two...was a little closer to me so a little better shot.  I imagine this is a  mated pair.  

a little preening...

So that was awesome to see..

I continued to back track and stopped at the information kiosk I had missed on the way up...they have some nice informative plaques of the history of this Valley here...but I got the story firsthand...  

I had passed this Shepherd's wagon in town...and snapped a photo of it on the street.  

and when I pulled into the Information pull off there was the same truck with wagon on back so I struck up a conversation with the couple, a rancher and wife last name Livingston.  They have been in Colorado all their lives.  He told me about how John C Fremont was the cause of the Ute Indian uprising that is memorialized not far out of town
(my post on the Yellow Jacket Pass and the Memorial here) 

You see the Ute had horses and they had a race track, Fremont was a religious man and felt the racing was not a good use of time they should be farmers, so he had the track plowed up to be used for farms and that started the whole dang thing!! 

Mr Livingston's father was a sheep rancher and this old shepherd's wagon has been in the family a long time they had it refurbished and it was used in the Meeker Trails a yearly sheep herding competition they had this past weekend...so they were picking it up to take back home...A very interesting couple.  AND what did I hear?? MY hunch was right----> Sandhill Cranes in the fields, they call this the Meeker Pastures..

Already on the migratory route probably will end up at Bosque del Apache NWR down in New Mexico. I counted about 40 birds here pretty far away...and they may have come from the Platte River in Nebraska where they breed, and the plains of other states to the North of Colorado.  I spotted Cranes west of this spot 2 years ago when I was on my way to Oregon..so that was my hunch, that they would be in this area. 

...and wouldn't you know that rain circled around and got me on the way home, 

But it was nearly finished when I hit it so no problems...

I stopped at the Bookcliffs Art Center in Rifle, saw this new mural has been put up I agree with this 100%

Never stop dreaming!

...and never stop believing in your dreams...

So where will I be next??

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.