Mesa Verde National Park & Monument Valley

After a quick 4th of July celebration of going to church in our home ward, doing some laundry and dinner and a visit with the Petersons, we were on the road to Colorado! We had to make it to the KOA campground in Cortez before 11pm.  I think we were late, but tried to be as quite as possible.

Our first day in Colorado we set off to do a beautiful drive suggested by our sister-in-law Cindy.  Wow, so amazing!  We went by Durango and Pico and Telluride. We stopped a few times to explore.

We stopped at this cute town, Ridgway. There was a fun and VERY expensive market where we picked up some goodies. Like Hawaii and Alaska prices! We bought some yummy pasta salad and two different kinds of cake and some cucumber soda.  It was gross.

The park had really fun musical instruments!

We drove through a very fun touristy, outdoor haven of a town--Ouray.  We need to go back there sometime and do some Jeep rides! Outside of Ouray was a fun waterfall and of course amazing views. This area is called the Alps of the US.  Or something like that.

Ouray is down below.

The park back in Ridgway

That day we realized the Chevy needed an oil change.  That often happens on trips!  Walmart came to the rescue!  They were open till 8 I think.  Lee was able to get right in for an oil change.  We also got some groceries there.  That evening we hit up the pool.

Campground fun!

Watch out, Mister!

Lee took Cal, Haley, and Clark on a fun bikeride one evening. Cal said it was his favorite bike ride ever. It was called Phil's World.

The next day we visited Mesa Verda National Park. I wanted to go to some particular cliff dwellings but I didn't realize you needed reservations for them. But I found some that were self-guided.  We also went on a bike ride on a loop.  There were overlooks where you could see cliff dwellings.  I think some of these things are out of order, but this is what we did...

The dwellings are so awesome!  And amazing! I love seeing the varied treasures around the U.S.A.

Pocketknives with Jimmy and Jim on them.  The boys' nicknames.  Though Elden's is "Little Jimmy". 

Our last morning there I spent quite a bit of time buying a building!  We bought a church to renovate for Lee's office!  We are just renting his office. Our initial plan was to save up and build a brand new building in a couple years.  But then our plans changed when we found out FIRE. It was more appealing to us to be financially independent than to have a brand new building....which would mean no extra savings after the new building was done.  Of course we could sell the building and get the money from that investment.  But we would rather have the money for an early retirement, or complete financial independence.  You know when you want to shake things up sometimes, and do something different?  I wanted to do that!  Lee and I started going on evening walks and one night the end of March we walked by the church building.  I mentioned to Lee that we should buy it and renovate it for Lee's office. After MANY months, we bought it!  I'll write more later when I get the keys to the building after our trip.  

But that morning it was frustrating trying to BUY the building.  We transferred money around and were all ready to pay cash for the building before we left on our long trip.  Our realtor and the title company knew that we were going to be gone when the closing happened.  So why in the world they didn't know that we had to sign paperwork for the wire money transfer blows our minds.  We hired these people to help us. We've never bought a building before!  We didn't want to delay the closing either. The bank confirmed that we had to be there in person to sign the wire transfer from the bank to the title company. UGH! Thankfully our realtor is great friends with the president or vice president of our bank.  She was able to talk to the friend and get permission (with our permission) to sign the paperwork for the money transfer. Whew.  We stopped at 7-11 for slurpees to celebrate, then headed to Arizona. The wire transfer went through the next morning and we are the official owners of a church building!

We swung by Monument Valley after Cortez, CO.  We wanted to have a better drive IN Monument Valley, but the Indian Reservation is closed because of COVID. Thankfully you can easily get great views from a highway.