Thursday, July 3. We try our hand at fly fishing and we journey to the mouth of the Rio Grande River.

After a quick breakfast, we drove to town to scope out the shopping and investigate the possibility of a guided fly fishing expedition. At the local Orvis shop we found an likeable, knowledgeable young man who encouraged us to take a float fishing trip. We are scheduled for Sunday morning. In the meantime, to get in a bit of practice, he suggested we try our rods at a small stocked lake called Love. We quickly found out that expensive equipment from Cabellas does not a fly fisherman make. We looked good though! More practice is needed…..

After giving the trout a good laugh, we decided to investigate future camping sites in the Rio Grande National Forest—we had heard there were some spectacular locations for dry camps. In addition, dogs were allowed off leash and so were campfires. Little did we know that we would be traversing some very narrow and steep roads as well as viewing some incredible forests, valleys and mountain tops. We had seen only a small part of it getting to Love Lake, so equipped with maps and instructions from the local Forestry agent we started out. Five hours, 18 miles of logging-type roads, and many photo stops later we reached our destination—the mouth of the Rio Grande. Unbelievably, we found some hardy souls had actually pulled their RV’s up there! Some harrowing switchbacks and steep inclines prevented us from even considering that goal for ourselves—we were contented to admire those that had!

We timed our journey downhill out of the Park and it took an hour with a minimum of photo stops—one being for three deer playing at the edge of one of the smaller reservoirs on the river. I also spotted what I thought was a beaver, but I think now it was a Nutria, though I was surprised that they were so far north. We did see 2 large beaver dams and lodges, though.

The Rio Grande rises in the east Rio Grande National Forest in the state of Colorado. It is formed by the confluence of several streams at the base of Canby Mountain, just east of the continental divide. From there, it flows through the San Luis Valley, then south into New Mexico through Albuquerque and Las Cruces to El Paso, Texas, where it begins to form the border between the U.S. and New Mexico. A major tributary, the Rio Conchos, enters at Ojinaga, Chihuehua, below El Paso, and supplies most of the water in the 1,254 miles (2,018 km) Texas border segment. Other known tributaries include the Pecos and the smaller Devils, which join the Rio Grande on the site of Amistad Dam in Del Rio. Despite its name and length, the Rio Grande is not navigable by oceangoing ships, nor are there smaller craft using it as a route. In fact it is barely navigable at all. Its natural flow is only 1/20 the volume of the Colorado River, and less than 1/100 that of the Mississippi.

We both decided that the destination made the journey worth while.