Browns Canyon National Monument, Colorado
May 25, 2026
After an early morning start so that we could fit in a little diversion to Big O Tires in Trinidad, we got on our way and continued our trek through beautiful Colorado.
We had previously scheduled a 9 am appointment at the tire shop to replace our almost-bald trailer tires, and we managed to get there a little early. They promptly started work, and we were rolling out by 10:30. Shout out to Big O!
If you find yourself in Trinidad, Colorado and in sudden need of new tires, we highly recommend Big O!
In past years, there is usually some point in our travel route where we feel like we finally "arrived". (This is rather arbitrary, as we are continuously "arriving", but whatever.) We reached that point this time during our route to our next Colorado destination.
Rick was getting the best views of the Sangre De Cristo mountains for a while
What a gorgeous valley!
We drove through the cute town of Westcliffe
Mountain valley vistas were exchanged for rugged canyon views
We stopped for lunch along the Arkansas River
The road to our campground was a sketchy dirt road with a 12% grade (this picture doesn't really give the full effect). The big pile of rocks ahead gave us a bit of reassurance that we wouldn't fall off the road to our death.
Our campsite was great--right in the heart of Brown's Canyon with a view of the Arkansas River.
Look around
The weather was quite fickle during our stay. The mornings were usually sunny, but by noon, clouds would inevitably move in. Sometimes the sun would come back out for short periods; sometimes it would sprinkle. When the sun was out it felt very warm. When it hid behind the clouds, we were most comfortable in light jackets. The best weather was forecasted to be the first couple of days, so we packed in all our activities on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday morning, we took a hike along the river adjacent to our campground.
The Arkansas River is very popular for rafting
Interesting water flowers
Look around
Things started getting sketchy when Rick decided to venture beyond the official end of the trail. (That's never happened before 😉)
Sign read...
...and sign acknowledged
We couldn't figure out how they got this machinery here. It must have been quite expensive, because it looks like they just abandoned it here.
We saw lots of rafters
Didn't see many flowers
That evening, we headed into the historic and quaint town of Salida for dinner at The Boathouse. Afterwards, the town provided a great venue to walk off that dinner!
The bar area of The Boathouse Restaurant We really enjoyed our meals here!
After dinner we walked along the Arkansas River and through the historic part of town. The Boathouse restaurant is the building on the left.
Dark clouds threatened, but the storms didn't come our way.
People "surf boarding" on the river
There was a kayak course along a stretch of the river.
We noticed lots of kids (and their families) in town. It seemed like a great place to grow up!
Several blocks were cut off to vehicles
Lots of fun seating areas in the streets
We saw bikes and bike racks everywhere.
A Florida transplant?
The drive home was dreamy...
The road to the campground didn't feel so sketchy when we weren't towing a beast.
The next day, we headed into the mountains. Basically, we just found a road that looked like it would go into the mountains and we followed it.
The campground road might have been sketchy, but it sure was scenic!
Into the mountains we go!
Our first stop was Agnes Vaille Falls
The falls themselves were not too dramatic, but the rest of the scenery made up for it!
As we were sitting by the falls, we witnessed a pit bull attack a smaller dog that apparently got too close to it on the narrow trail. Luckily, both dogs were on leashes and the owners were able to separate them, but only after the little white dog got bit in the face. There are lots of dogs here in Colorado and it seems that everyone wants to take them everywhere. We were sure to give the pit bull a wide berth.
Back in the car and up the mountain some more--the road eventually turned to dirt.
We eventually reached the end of the line (our line at least) at the ghost town of St. Elmo.
Why are all these people sitting on the wood pile?
If you look closely, you'll see lots of chipmunks and a few birds climbing on the wood and the people. They sell sunflower seeds at the general store, and the chipmunks have become a permanent attraction.
Random old building
The buildings in the town were left as they were when abandoned.
More random abandoned buildings--although some look like they are only semi-abandoned.
Quite a beautiful setting for a cemetery!
A yellow-bellied marmot (aka rock chuck)
Alpine Lake
More gorgeous birch trees!
Chalk Creek cascades
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Chalk Lake
An old abandoned school house
The last couple of days were spent close to the campsite amidst unpredictable weather. Mostly we were just a little tired from the previous days activities, but we also busied ourselves trying to plan some of the logistics of our next spring transition from RV life to the "real world". As we are finding out, it is taking a little more thought than was apparent at first glance. Questions arose such as when and where do we sell the RV? Do we try to sell it while we are living in it? Where will we put all our stuff? Will there be any "dead time" between when we have sold the RV and when we can rent an apartment that we want? If so, where do we live? Etc., etc., etc. We ultimately decided to fix up the RV for sale in January at our usual RV park and then move the RV into a Tampa-area storage facility and move ourselves (and our belongings) into a short-term rental facility for February and March while we put the RV up for sale. With enough luck, we could sell the RV, enjoy a last bit of Florida sunshine, load our belongings into a U-Haul and deposit them directly into a new apartment in Minnesota that will be waiting for us. (And, hopefully we would avoid running into one of those notorious April snowstorms up there.) That's an awful lot of luck to be depending upon, and somehow we have a hunch that things won't go exactly like that. But, we decided to put on our optimistic hats and hope for some close-ish version. To that end, Julie spent the day looking for an appropriate vacation rental for February and March. She managed to find a modest house in a modest neighborhood of Tampa that, while small, will seem palatial compared to what we are used to living in.
That's all for now!
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