Back to the warm(!)

On Monday morning we said sad farewells to Sarah, Carl and Brianna and drove back to Alamosa. Our route took us through Fairplay, otherwise known as South Park (yes the cartoon of the same name was based here). We also took the opportunity to take a side trip to The Royal Gorge, just outside Canon (pronounced Canyon) City. Royal Gorge is a deep, deep gorge which has been cut by the Alabama River. Only a few hundred feet wide it is up to 1250 feet deep. At its deepest it is crossed by a small suspension bridge, making a very dramatic scene.
We continue to be bombarded by the beauty and sheer scale of the mountains and valleys of Colorado, knowing that no photo can do justice to the reality of the place. We drove back to the trailer, through the Alabama River valley, stopping for a lunch at Patties Patio Pancake restaurant in Salida, which we could recommend to anyone travelling through.
As we moved south, the Saguache Basin opened out and the snow receded up the mountain tops. We dropped by 3000 feet and arrived safely at Alamosa, where is should have been warmer, not so. The weather this time of year can be very changeable. We were OK Monday night, but Tuesday night was really cold. Overnight the temperature plummeted to 20 degrees F, freezing the water supply to the trailer, so we had to flush the loo with bottled water (now that's posh).
Still we felt reasonably snug in our little trailer home, probably because we had both heaters blasting away.