Colorado Springs to Crestone

This morning, Josh and I realized that we didn't have a place to stay tonight! We sent out a few Couch Surfing requests to people between Colorado Springs and Albuquerque as Chris cooked breakfast. She made waffles from scratch... delicious! After breakfast, we got a phone call from a host in Crestone, Jim, who said we could stay with him for the night... I think Josh and I were pretty easy-going before we started this trip, but it's crazy how extremely flexible Couch Surfing forces you to be! We never really worry about planning out the next part of our trip because something always works out, even if it's extremely last minute. We also sent out requests for Taos for tomorrow and managed to get a yes for that as well!

We said goodbye to Chris and John and headed south to Crestone. Along the way, we saw a sign for Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. We hadn't heard of it before but decided to check it out!

We took a short 1 mile hike to see the fossils, but quickly learned that it was mostly fossilized tree stumps.

My favorite part of the hike was an informative sign that said, "The petrified forest that you see today, although impressive, may represent just a portion of what was once here..."

Um...

What?

I'm not sure what impressive forest that sign was talking about, but we basically just saw live trees and open fields.

The drive into Crestone was interesting: the land was very bare, but the mountains in the background were very pretty.

To be honest, our drive out to Jim's house was very strange and ominous... it seemed like we were driving into scary, dark mountains...

Soon we saw lots and lots of elk, and things got better from there. Jim's house was very normal, and so was he!

We talked to him over dinner; he cooked and ate his own food and we ate pizza leftovers from the previous night (Chris and John packed it for us, so nice). Jim was an Aerospace Engineer from Wisconsin who moved out to Colorado after graduating in the 1960's, and he lived in Denver as an engineer and then as a carpenter up until five years ago when he bought three acres of land in Crestone. He explained that the house we were staying in was the first house he built... it is the neatest thing!

The house on the right is what he called the "hobbit house," and the building on the left is the control room for the solar panels. It took him two years to build the hobbit house and another two to build his main house! Since he is a carpenter, he designed and built all of the cabinetry in all of the houses. He also lives completely off the grid as all of his electricity is provided by his solar panels!

Unfortunately, Jim had a cold so he only had energy to hang out for a bit, so Josh and I headed into the hobbit house after dinner. It is the cutest little building with a mini fridge, hot plate, and bunk beds! Before we went to sleep, Josh made sure that the heater was on, since it was supposed to get pretty cold!

Josh's high was seeing Jim's neat hippie community, and my high was making the most out of today; even though there were some depressing moments, we stayed in a great mood! Josh's low is the weather; it's been so cold and cloudy for a while, now. My low was the Florrisant Fossil Beds... it was probably the worst National Park/Monument that we've been to on this trip. Maybe it's nicer in the summer? Josh's "ho" was hearing a really interesting story on "This American Life" on the radio, and my "ho" was Josh at breakfast... he ate FIVE plate-sized waffles. I'm pretty sure that Chris and John were going to save them, but Josh left them with no leftovers!!