the last day I could really get out to the high country was the 12th  We had gotten a bit more snow so I decided to go back to the Blanco Basin Road because I thought it would be so amazing back there with snow on the mountains.  The sky was clear and pure blue it was a perfect fall day in the Colorado Mountains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blanco River

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Panoramas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way home I stopped at the lake along 160 and tool this one

 

 

When I was taking pictures of the swans the reflections on the lake were very pretty

 

 

 

 

I zoomed in on the red area

 

 

 

then decided to crop it an see if i liked it better, which I do, I think the ripples were distracting

 

 

 

 

 

here are some reflected trees

 

 

 

 

 

When I got home the sun was setting

 

 

 

 

 

 

About midway through Kebler Pass we took a side trip a couple miles off the main road to Lost Lake.  There is a gorgeous campground there.  My brother and I were wondering if there were so many campsites there in the early 90’s? (not that there are a lot now)  We used to take our cocker spaniel up there from Paonia and he would jump right in the lake for a swim.

When we first pulled up there was a family fishing having a good time

     

Here is a little Panorama

The road back to the kebler pass road

We found some Columbines, there don’t seem to be any in our little corner of Colorado.  We have some little purple flowers that I always thought were some kind of mini columbines but they are Larkspur.  Most that we saw in this area were all white there was only one with the light blue outer petals   

A pretty little creek along the road

 

There were a few nice flowers outside the grocery store

I noticed the sap on a ponderosa pine that had a bald spot and decided to try a couple macro shots to see what would happen.  I really like them the light was not ideal for most of the sap drop and I had to focus on just a couple, so I think I will try this again on another day and see what else I can come up with.

This one I didn’t see the little ant while I was taking the pic, because the sun was shining in my eyes, so it was a little surprise when I got home 

The horse ended up hanging out in the back yard for a few days and then wandered off the day after I took this photo.  A couple days later though I noticed she was in the neighbor’s corral.  I had noticed he had left out some hay to see if he could coax her that direction.  So she is safe!  I’m not sure what he’ll do now no one seemed to care about what would happen to her so maybe he’ll keep her.  She is an older horse so I don’t know if training her would do much good.

On the way to Durango I spotted this guy out in the water when I got out of the car I thought it was going to be a moose out there eating but when I zoomed in to was a lighter color, and then zooming in more, it was clearly a buck with his antlers growing back.  I’m not sure what he was doing in the middle of the pond I’ve never seen a buck do that before.

Checking in on the swans, there is still one out on the nest on the little island

The mate though was swimming around and came real close to the area where I was standing

As he started to get closer he looked right at me wondering what I was doing 

Then as he got close to shore he started diving for goodies

This is the one I like the best, he just brought his head up and with it being wet it seems to stand out against the water better plus I like the way the sun is hitting him.

I was driving out to get the mail when i saw this snake in the road i tried not to run over it even though it appeared it was likely dead.  Right after I passed it over though I decided to stop and see if it was really dead.  When I got up to it I realized it was the biggest snake I had ever seen in the neighborhood.  There was a small rattler in the yard one day that the cat was messing with, and there are lots of garter snakes here and there. 

It was absolutely alive and moving it’s way slowly across the road, I snapped this one picture before another car came along and it picked up speed and was gone off the road and up the hill.  I kind of wonder why it didn’t scurry out of the way when I was about to run over it?

When I got home I looked online and found it is likely a Gopher Snake, it really looked more like a corn snake but they don’t live in this county and apparently they are at 6000 ft and lower and I live around 7800 ft so I came upon this snake around 7700 ft.

On the way to the post office I noticed one of the swans in the little lake by the road and saw the other was on this little island.  Last year when the lake was empty all year (because they were fixing the dam) there was a mound out in lake toward the west side and I wondered why at the time.  But when I got down to the lake on the way back from the post office there was a swan on the little island that looked like it was nesting.  So maybe they built the little island on purpose to give the swans a place to nest.

Here is the little island

and here is the swan looking like she may be tending some eggs.

 

There were some grasses growing out of the south side of the lake that I found interesting.