T.G.I.F... M.B.

Tasting Grand or Ickily Formulated Microbrewed Beer

This is a "growler" which contains 1 half gallon of beer (1.89 l)

We tried 3 of these fine people's beers - Raspberry Wheat ale, Colorado Trail Nut Brown Ale, and this growler of Lightner Creek Lager. The restaurant is tasty, and the brewery is powered by wind! At last, one can enjoy delicious goodness and be good to the environment at the same time.

Lightner Creek Lager

• What kind of beer? Light fluffy easy to drink great for a day of camping beer.
• Where is it brewed? In Durango, the only place to buy it. 
• Alcohol content? unknown, probably not too much though.
• Tasters' rating? G for grand!

Itinerary Items #2 and #3

• Monday morning... go to the hot springs in Pagosa. Shower.
• Monday afternoon... drive to Mesa Verde National Park. Camp two nights, hike, eat.

The springs...
Not too much to say about them really. This is the place to go because there are all kinds of pools to soak in. All the warmer ones are pretty smelly. We had gone in the winter too, and I think it's more fun in the winter actually. It's pretty expensive but there are free showers and they'll give you free shampoo and soap if you ask for it.

Mesa Verde National Park

Cliff Palace (left) was a short downstairs walk, while Balcony House (right) required a climb up the fun ladder in the centre. Ancient Puebloans occupied these cliff dwellings at the end of the 12th century / beginning of the 13th.

• Best part: The $3 guided tour of Balcony House.
• Worst part: We could have stayed for another day or two to see all the sights and sites.
• Lesson learned? The hiking for the guided tours isn't very grueling, you probably don't need to carry a pack with a litre of water in it when it's overcast.
• Rating? 5 stars! (outta 5)

This place was great! The Morefield campground had free showers with hot water, potable water taps at the campsites, you get to pick out your own site to camp in (reservations are advised) and beautiful views were everywhere.

Seeing and learning about Cliff Palace and Balcony House from the guides was well worth it, even if the hiking wasn't of the thrill seeking sort. We had a bit of that ahead of us yet.

1918 km and 4 Showers Later

We are back! I am experiencing that post-travel let-down, you know the one, where you instantly wish to go somewhere again or at least thoroughly relive the previous adventure for a few days after having a sleep or two in your own comfy bed.

Since the former isn't an option right now, we'll have to setter with the latter. Let the reliving begin!

Itinerary Item Number One:

Attend Pagosa's Four Corners Folk Festival. Drive down Thursday evening, stay until Monday morning.

The main stage was in a tent with 1200 seats pre-set up

• Best part: The music! The beer was pretty good too.
• Worst part: The dust. They watered the main roads every day but it was still a sneezefest.
• Lesson learned? If you're set to camp in the "vehicle free" area, do arrive during the time period when the shuttles are operating.
• Rating? 4 stars! (outta 5)

One of the keys to enjoying this festival, for us, was to not expect this festival. The scale is a lot smaller, but the music was still really good, and not having as many places to be kind of reduced the "stress" of trying to decide what workshops to attend... hey... there was only one workshop tent, and the workshops had names like  Fiddle or Guitar and people showed up to the tent with their fiddles and guitars! In the first workshop we watched a bit of, the band had to pause for a while to teach people some minor barre-chords.

Unlike the Winnipeg Folk Festival, the Vehicle Free Camping area was a tiny area.

When we bought our 3-Day Pass with Camping, I assumed that, like our Winnipeg Folk Festival, tons of people would be camped in this Vehicle Free area, and a few less tons in an RV area. The reality though, was that the majority was in the Vehicle camping area, maybe because they all needed to take their stand-up basses up the mountain somehow. Every "picking circle" we came across seemed to have its own stand-up bass!

The Main Stage

The bigger surprise for us, was the proximity of everything. About 30 steps from where we camped, we could see the festival site, and what I thought at first was the beer tent. As it turns out, this is actually the main stage, and it was set up with chairs so that you didn't have to get rained on in the late afternoon. You also didn't have to carry around your chair (not that it was so far to carry) but some sort of bum pillow might be advised. The other really great thing about camping right on top of the festival ground, was that you could go back to your campsite and have a meal, and still hear the bands play! It was a great experience.