We packed up after a shower and headed off for Pagosa Springs, CO. Pagosa Springs is known for hot springs (Pagosa means “healing waters”) and hot springs spas and soaks are everywhere. The town was much larger than Chama, perhaps 12,000 people, and the industry is (of course) tourism and the spas. We liked the feel of the town and talked to the realty agent there. She gave us several places to check out. We looked at maybe 4 places, all plain land with no structures. While we looked at one spot, we ran into a realtor showing the small cabin on the neighboring property. On another backcountry road, we passed 2 cars that were definitely realtors with clients following. This place is being looked at by someone!
We decided it was still too soon to decide and we still hadn’t seen anything we both really liked, so we kept our notes and moved on to Salida, CO. We won’t make it there tonight, so we found a forest service road off Hwy #160 and went up the side of the mountain to about 11,000 ft elevation. There’s still patches of snow up here in June and snowmelt waterfalls are everywhere. We found a spot away from highway noise and camped next to a beautiful mountain stream.