Ugh! An awful, sleepless night in a terrible camp spot. We went back into Paonia to talk with a United Country Realty office to see what they may have listed. The town had an unusual number of Holistic and Vegetarian merchants for such a small town. Some of the buildings are quite old, we saw dates of 1902 and 1903. One MLS listing showed a house built in 1908. The industry in the area is primarily coal mining and Chaco sandal factory, but for some reason, the prices are beyond what we want to pay (not necessarily what we CAN pay). It seem this area was written up in Forbes Magazine about three month earlier. We found out more about the demographics of the area… Coal mining and Trust Fund Hippies and a few local shop owners. By observing some of the locals and overhearing a couple of conversations, we could tell there was a huge rift between the blue collar workers and the silver spoons. Too big a rift for such a small town.
But we have lots of stuff to look at. We drove through Ouray, CO. Nothing we could afford, but it is a beautiful drive thru the mountains. We noticed a lot more traffic on the road than when we were thru here on a 9 day vacation in June of 2001. We headed for Durango, CO, but we didn’t make it before the business offices closed for the day. We found a free campground on CR 201 called Hermosa Creek Campground and called it home for the night. We’re in the mountains and it’s much cooler than last night, maybe we’ll sleep better.