Exploring Cortez

We've been in Cortez, Colorado for 8 days now and are loving it! Our RV park is actually in Towaoc, on the Ute Reservation and 10 miles from town. It's very nice with a little grass, plus it has a playground and indoor pool! The town is small-population of 8,000. It is one of the friendliest small towns we've ever been in though.

The drive over from Montrose was so pretty!

Cortez Public Library

One of the first places we checked out was the library. I was delighted that they let us get a temporary card so that we could take books home! The staff is extremely friendly and the books are well organized which made it easy to find many of our favorite authors. There is a great selection of educational toys geared for younger kids as well. They had a program called Rodeo Days when we were there. The rodeo princesses and a former bull rider were there and talked about how rodeo started. They had their equipment there and showed the kids how it all works and helps to keep them safe. Each kid there was given a free ticket to Thursday nights rodeo!

Lasso tricks.

Doing a demonstration with a toy bull and clown.

Ute Mountain Round-up Club

Since we had the tickets, we went to Thursday nights rodeo. Needless to say, we had a fabulous time! The announcer was on a horse in the arena and played along great with the clown and his jokes. Interestingly enough, the beer flowed freely all around us but we smelled no cigarette smoke and everyone was SO friendly. The lady next to us gave the kids a funnel cake and couldn't stop messing with him :) . 

I loved the mountains in the background!

Mutton Busting! Emily was sure she wanted to do it but with each kid that rode her answer got a little less confident.

Emily with her new friend. Before it was over, there was kids from at least 4 different families playing together on the bleachers near us. 

We were super impressed with clown. He was funny but had clean jokes and he had his 6 year old son in the arena with him some of the time. He did some fabulous tricks on his horse too- like riding upside down!

Mesa Verde National Park

On Friday we headed off to Mesa Verde. We purchased an annual pass so that we could get into all the National Parks and Monuments -there is a lot around here! We choose a 2 mile hike and enjoyed it even though it was super hot. The views were astounding! The children were exhausted and hungry when we were done so we headed home and promised ourselves that we would be back soon to do more exploring.

At the end of the trail.

Love the clouds!

Looking over Montezuma Valley.

 

Lots of Lizards!

Visitors!

My sister Michelle and her family came down and spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning with us. We didn't tell the children they were coming so it was great to walk into Pizza Hut and see the shock on their faces! After we stuffed ourselves with pizza we went to the rodeo again :) . 

Ethan is s.l.o.w.l.y. warming up to them!

The Carnival. "Wow, that must take a lot of internet for all those lights" -Michael

After the rodeo we went to Dairy Queen before dragging our exhausted children home to bed.

City Park

Sunday morning we visited Arriola Bible Church this morning. The children were especially thrilled because they had both Sunday School and Children's Church! We enjoyed it as well. Afterwards we headed to a park for a picnic. Cortez is blessed with at least 5 nice parks!

Trying to catch the baby ducks.

Crazy wild swing rides.

I got dizzy watching!

O the giggles!

Eldon is liking his job at the hospital so that's a huge bonus to being here. The longer we are here the more we love it. Looking forward to exploring more in the area this week.