Forty Pounds of Wet Corn: Colorado day twelve

Alrighty! Heading back to the springs, for arguably the worst part of the trip! Not for anything that any of us did to ourselves or each other, but because our rental was a fucking nightmare. 

We woke up that morning, packed up our shit, and headed out. One of the things we wanted to make sure we hit up on the way our of Purgatory was the hot springs we saw every time we drove back from Durango. 

But first, a few pictures of the place we stayed in the light of day, since when we arrived i was crazy late, and I didn't think of it until we were leaving:

Cute! You can ski right in and out of there, when there's snow! A storm was brewing itself up, though. It did not impact our travels in the least. 

The Springs:

We tooled around here for about thirty  minutes, I lost my chance to take a good photo with my good camera, and opted to just settle for my phone photos, because I was too irritated to do anything else. 

The storm on our way out:

Our first stop was at a brewery in Pagosa Springs. It was right along the river, we opted to sit outside. It was pretty nice! Just warm enough to be pleasant, and no humidity. Thank you, Colorado!

They offered fresh made in house ginger beer AND root beer. Given that I cannot do sugar, but was immensely curious about how they tasted. I've been dying to make a ginger bug for ages, and I will one day make my own root beer, as well. Nobody at the table wanted to order one on their own, so Derek had the idea of me asking if they could just bring me a sample of each. Which they did, and they didn't even charge me for them, which was delightful. As were the beers! The ginger beer had so much fucking kick, I loved it. I am super excited to make my own. Eventually. 

Caryn's shrimp quesadillas, but for kids!

My dad's some kind of hoagie, but for hoags!

Derek's poutine, but for poots! Which is why he was taking the lactaid he was in the picture. To keep the poots at bay. 

The river that the restaurant was on. Our table was barely out of frame. It was pretty nice. 

After that, we just...drove. We stopped at Treasure Falls, and we were going to do the hike, but Caryn didn't feel up to it, and I just wanted to grab rocks for Rhyann. So that's what we did. 

There I am, grabbing river bed sludge! We had a blast going through all of it for a few hours together two days after Derek and I got home. We found lots of pretty rocks! Derek is currently printing us a panning set up so we can properly pan all of the grit. He says there's a reason they call it Treasure Falls, and he wants to find some treasure. 

After spending a bit of time talking to a delightful family who asked us what we were doing grabbing rocks, and then charmed us with their oldest child also being into rocks and science, we made our way back to the car and headed outt for the last leg of the drive. 

The clouds were starting to look a little ominous again, but who here minds?? Not me!!

I can't recall where we were, somewhere in Durango/Silverton, but we kept seeing a sign about Buffalo, something like, "BUFFALO FER MEAT!" Something to that effect. It made us all laugh. But then we did get to see some bison, Caryn wanted some photos, so we stopped for the big horned moo cows. Who do not moo. 

Our initial plan had been to stop at Zapata Falls, because Derek and I had always wanted to do it, and had never gotten around to it. We were under the false impression that the hike itself was hard...it is not. 

Howver, two things stopped us from doing that. One, we wanted to get to Little Nepal in time to eat dinner. 

And two: the fucking weather. We were heading right into the storm. Now, those photos are all from AFTER the turn into the park, but we could see the storm in the distance and we figured just rolling on through was the best course of action. We were for sure met with thunderstorms around Pueblo. But we made it to Little Nepal on time!! And we set about to eat. 

The beers my dad and Derek got: 

Both of them expired, but both of them were reported as delicious. Our papadams: 

Always a delight. The veggie pakora sampler, also always a delight: 

Our garlic naan, Derek's favorite: 

Caryn's chicken tandoor: 

My dad's lamb tikka: 

My saag paneer, which I ordered at a spice level of medium plus. Which was perfect for eating and catching a little whiff of heat...for me. Caryn, on the other hand, was offered a bite by a certain someone who forgo thatt it was hot, and Caryn can't do spicy foods, and Caryn coughed a whole bunch and had a generally not good time. That someone was me. I am someone. Someone TERRIBLE. 

Derek's lamb roganjosh, I think is wha he got? Whaever it was, it was lamb, and here it is: 

Fuck yeah, Little Nepal!

Derek and I went there AGAIN with Vin and Erica and Riley our very last night in town. I ate there three fucking times while I was in Colorado, which is a remarkably low amount of times. 

After dinner, we headed tto our little homestead for the night. And it was the pits. No a/c, shit was breaking, I almost fell down the fucking stairs and broke my face because the laminate at the top of the stairs was cracked and fucked up and bent, no hot water, all manner of rules that did not make sense to us (like no using the garage. The garage was empty as fuck, but we weren't allowed to use it), all of th dishes were dirty, it was just not a good place for almost 200 a night. Derek and I didn't even end up spending the second night there, we just split. 

And that was everyone's last full day in Colorado. All in all, it was a pretty fucking spectacular day.