It was fairly cloudy at the start of the day and after a leisurely breakfast we decided to take a relatively short drive today. We left the hotel and as we drove around the edge of town we found a family of deer wandering around the streets in the middle of Durango.
Heading out east, we followed the scenic route 160 for about 40 miles to Chimney Rock. as we turned south on the route 151 we realised that the town had been named after a rock formation rising from the nearby hills which indeed looked like a chimney! Not far south of the main road, we entered the Southern Ute Indian Reservation. The road we were on was very quiet and we were able to stop and look at birds and animals near the road. We stopped first to look at small birds and found ourselves watching Western Bluebirds which unsuprisingly were a beautiful blue colour! Nearby, we sat and watched several Black-tail prairie dogs close to the road.
About twenty miles further on we came to the Navajo State Recreation Area which had a small wildlife reserve attatched to it. We parked and walked down to the Piedra River. The reserve was completely deserted and therefore very quiet and we saw Turkey Vultures (which to be fair can be seen almost anywhere), ground squirrels and down by the river bear paw prints!
As we drove along Navajo Lake north of Arboles, we were almost in the State of New Mexico. Continuing on toward Ignacio, we saw a Coyote crossing the road just ahead of us. Ignacio is part of the Southern Ute Indian Reservation and is quite a lively town. We spotted a delicatessen on a street corner and had an excellent lunch there.
As we headed back toward Durango on the route 172, we could see it was raining ahead of us and by the time we got back to the motel we had run into the rain. We spent a lazy afternoon reading and watching the rain fall. In the evening, we drove back into downtown Durango and had dinner in a bar with live music.
Hotel - Adobe Motel
Weather - Cool in the morning and partly cloudy. Later it clouded over and we had rain through to early evening.
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