a trip down memory lane via the Last Dollar Road

Dave's enroute to the East Coast right now (should be landing in Boston any moment) and Chaos and I are home with the spaz of a cat holding down the fort. I've been catching up on cleaning and even managed to trap the cat in the storage under the window seat when I made the bed. It's ok... she meowed an hour later and I let her out... really- I didn't leave her there on purpose. Although I may wish I had later when she's overtaking my pillows. I've been waking up congested a lot and blame this on the small furry one.

Oct 2007 Last Dollar Road

On our way home chaos and I took the shortcut. Last Dollar Road was the first way Camp Chaos ever attempted to drive into Telluride. The 2006 Visitor Guide showed the road and Dave and I thought it would be a good shortcut. Although it is shorter it is a more scenic drive on a dirt road in the mountain, in late April 2006 we found this out the hard way and didn't make it the whole way. We had to turn around and go on the Sawpit road instead--- but not before killing the midpipe of the subaru's muffler in a deep puddle. In April 2006 the road had been partially snowed in and was impassable. We have had some snow this season but only small patches remain in the woods and the 4runner had no issue with our scenic route today.

Our 2006 road trip covered Maine to Washington in three weeks and over 9,000 miles.

We packed a subaru and thule box with all the things for a good trip and only managed to camp out one night... where we didn't even set up the tent because it snowed 4".  It's funny now to think that we wanted to camp in Colorado in late April!

The trip gave us a chance to see ski towns all over the west and try to plan where we wanted to move... we ended up in the town that we spent 3 hours in. We had came into Telluride during the spring off season and it was a quiet town. The gondola was closed as were most of the shops. We walked Chaos in town park then grabbed pizza at BIT while taking advantage of their free Wi-Fi to send out an email update.... this was before camp chaos became bloggers and had a crackberry.

Chaos looks so young in all the photos. He was a year and four months old and still living up to his name. He had a sweet set up in the back of the wagon. Chaos was still using a crate so we packed his foldable soft sided crate along with his LL Bean dog bed for the trip. I loved that crate but am glad that phase is over. It's a lot easier traveling sans crate.  We used to take it into hotels when traveling with him. When we moved cross country we had Chaos with his crate and Munee Kitty and her litter box plus their food and our stuff to contend with each night.

While going through photos tonight I found this shot of the Last Dollar Road and also the one above taken in October 2007. It's funny to see how we capture the same mountians and now view them so differently. In April 2006 we thought this was a great shot of pretty mountains... after three years here I can now see how  this isn't...it's almost drab in comparison to the Fall 2007 image.

It also goes to show you how long we've been here now. This September marked three full years in Telluride.