Durango Colorado – beautiful place. Last time I was here was back in the late 70s as a teenager, doing a 2-week road trip out West. The two historical hotels are still here as I remembered; the Strater Hotel (which we stayed in for one night), and the General Palmer Hotel. Still just as preserved as it was back then with ‘Wild West’ decor and saloons. And of course the Train Station! Main Street has changed somewhat, lots of alfesco dining and cool shops to stroll around. Check out the picture above at the closed hunting store with what looks like a real dog in the window display – jokes on us – it IS a real live dog! He had such sweet eyes and took his job quite seriously, looking regal with his green bandana and stayed in character by not moving/interacting with people looking at him. How on earth did the owners train him to do that? and the store was closed, where are the owners? Do they leave him there all nigh? So many questions. All I can say though is “good boi”.
Take Note: there are 4 different picture album links in this post (#69, 70, 71, and 72).
Pics around town in Durango (Album #69)
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This narrow gauge railroad was built in nine short months back in 1882 and has been taking passengers on excursions ever since! It is truly a spectacular experience. They were currently running two trains every day, one steam and one diesel. We rode the diesel train in the coach immediately behind the engine. Not our first choice of seats (we actually wanted to ride the steam train and indulge in the rear luxury caboose), but with just one day planning we took what was available. They pretty much sell out everyday, and over the course of one years time they carry close to 220,000 people!
Starting off in Durango in the morning, it’s a three hour ride to Silverton. We then had 2 hours in Silverton to stretch our legs, grab lunch at Natalia’s which originally was the 1883 Welcome Saloon, and check out the gift shops lining the town’s dirt roads. Hopping back on board we got to travel three more hours back to Durango. The train stopped several times to pick up backcountry hikers from the Needles region and other small ‘stations’.
For the majority of the way, the rails follow the Animas River. We got to see the water at eye/ground level, and from a bird’s eye view when the rails were hugging the cliffside 400 feet up the side of the mountain.
Once back in Durango, we had time to quickly browse the 12,000 square foot Railroad Museum – highly recommended to visit it if you have the time; they feature many train-set dioramas, and many treasured artifacts donated by local families.
Durango-Silverton Train pics (album #70)
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Mesa Verde National Park was one that neither Jim or I knew much about. We knew of course it was the home to Cliff Dwellings, but not much else. What a treat this Park was to spend a full enjoyable day here. The scenic road inside the Park was fun to drive and offered up so many breathtaking vistas. The gentle but constant switchbacks take you through a tunnel, leading to many Overlooks, and after 20 miles that takes two hours, ends at the the Cliff Palace dwelling site at over 7,000 feet of elevation.
A nice surprise on the drive out was seeing a wild horse. We wouldn’t have seen him but for the three deer standing on high alert at the edge of the road, not looking at us, but intently checking out the far side of the road. We followed their stares and there he was, the blackest of black coats mimicking the color of the many regal Ravens there too.
An interesting fact about this National Park is that it is the only one established to preserve the archeological heritage of the Ancestral Pueblo people – there are over 4,500 archeological sites and 600 of those are cliff dwellings. You seem them everywhere you look when you look hard enough at the canyon walls.
Mesa Verde NP pics (album 71)..
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Yes, it was white knuckle driving! Yes, at 10,000 feet elevation the trees were showing splendid fall colors! Yes, I’d do it again in a heartbeat! Drove from Durango through Silverton (traveling through many of the same canyons carved by the Animas River) to Ouray Colorado. Had hoped to take in a hot spring in Ouray, but daylight was fast upon us, so we skipped that. However, we found that the timing upon approaching Durango afforded us a second chance at a hot spring soak at the Durango Hot Springs Resort.
Million Dollar Hwy to Ouray (album #72)
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Looking online while driving southward towards the end of our Million $ Drive, we were delighted to discover available tickets were still open for the Last Call Soak time. 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Perfect sunset relaxation. Mineral rich hot springs infused with oxygen-rich nano bubbles in its waters, 16 different soaking pools of various sizes and temperatures were nice to bounce around. We found a perfect 106 degree water one perched up high to overlook the center lawn and listen to the live music. It was a great evening to meet and chat amongst what was mostly locals, including a group of late-20-something professionals enjoying a hometown reunion. Growing up in Durango, they left town for better opportunities, but most all of them had plans to return to the area and plant their own family roots back in their treasured hometown. They were so warm and welcoming – great town ambassadors!
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DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT All the different days/regions we explored in Page Arizona (August 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, September 1 and 2) can be found in the Picture Album #62, link found in each paragraph below.
We arrived in Page Arizona in the late afternoon, and managed to set up camp and have enough time to jump back in the car and head to Horseshoe Bend at the perfect time: Sunset. It was beautiful. Kayakers down at the water’s edge looked so tiny! We hope to do a water trip on the Colorado River here to see the Bend from a different perspective. The Bend is shortly after the Glen Canyon Dam which holds back the reservoir of Lake Powell.
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Antelope Canyon is on Navajo lands, so you must book a Navajo Indian Tour Guide to see this magnificent slot canyon. The interesting thing about this canyon is it’s ever-changing landscape, all shaped according to the waters that flow through here. Just two years ago, the floor of the canyon was about 20 feet higher than today! Flash floods constantly carve out new corners to peek around. The canyon has two areas, an Upper section and a lower section. We toured the Upper Canyon, which has a shape like an “A”, meaning the floor is wider than the top, allowing sunbeams to find their way in to the slot, while the Lower canyon is the exact opposite in the shape of a “V”. The actual tour began at their office location in downtown Page, so it is there where we hopped on a 15-person shuttle van equipped with super sized cold A/C and 4-wheel drive super-sized tires. Drove about 10 miles outside of town onto a gravel road and then down into the actual wash itself! That’s when the 4-wheel drive was needed, and was so much fun in and of itself! This was obviously not the first time this Navajo driver navigated the sometimes sandy, sometimes mushy river/wash, evidenced by his one hand on the wheel and the other holding a thermos of chilled water. The tour was not cheap, but so well worth it and I highly recommend it!
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* Wahweap Marina (also known as Lake Powell Resorts and Marina). Boat ramps closed everywhere; no boats can launch anymore because the ramp’s end is now about 40 feet above the water line!
* Lone Rock Beach – this is (or was) a popular boondocking site for campers. Not so much these days due to the low water levels exposing new (and sandier) lakebed. The loose gravel and hard-to-tell dirt roads were kind of sketchy. Driving Lois down here was a bit unnerving, and I can’t imagine driving a rig down! There was one lone Boon-docker (truck and trailer rig) around, and only a few more day use folks here. Sad to see that the water has receded so far down that there is no water nowadays around the rock. YouTube videos we watched from 2020 and earlier had boats and jet-skiers driving around the rock, and boogie boards and SUPs at the water line just yards away from their campers – not so anymore sadly. 4-wheel drive is recommended.
* Glen Canyon Dam – Carl Hayden Visitor Center is located right at the dam as well as the ——— bridge.
* Lake Powell Boat Ride –
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Next up on our exploration of Page area was Antelope Point Marina, the newer of the two marinas in the area.
Hikes in this area included ………
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Ely (pronounced “E-Lee”).
DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT – I’m falling behind but will catch up soon and fill in the blanks. Meanwhile, the pic albums (#59 and 60) have been created and posted and I didn’t want to keep you Readers waiting for new blog entries! So enjoy, and come back in a few days for more verbiage.
Pictures in Ely, NV (album #59)
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The Great Basin National Park is the least visited National Park in America. It’s certainly not due to the many unique and interesting things to see and do here, but rather because of it’s actual location; very remote and out of the way. Yet it is only 60 miles away from Ely.
* International Dark Sky Park – Great Basin got this designation in 2016. This remote park has such clean air and very little light pollution. Its night sky offers brilliant views of planets, constellations and the Milky Way. We disappointingly could not stay in the Park too long after dark because we needed to get back to “Clark” and rest up for a Travel Day the next morning.
* We did drive the entire Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive all the way up to the end of the road. By this time, the sun was fast setting and we were not dressed warm enough to take on the 3 mile hike (and 1200 feet elevation gain) up to view the Bristlecone Pine trees and see Wheeler Peak higher than 10,000 feet. Yet we scrambled up the trail about a 1/4 mile and scrambled back down even quicker due to the falling temperatures. Back at the Parking Lot, a distressed & crying 20-something guy from Virginia was yelling “Dakota” over and over; sadly, his hound dog had been off leash on the Wheeler Peak trail and somehow got separated from his owner, and had been missing for hours. We can only hope that “Dakota” could smell the human scents of the nearby small campground, and hone in on that as well as realizing to remain descending from the mountain top. I don’t think the guy was going to leave the parking lot until he found him. Fortunately, some overnight campers consoled him and were helping with calls out into the woods. It was heartbreaking to know this dog/man partnership had been on the road for several weeks together and be torn apart so unexpectedly.
* Bristlecone Pines
* Lehman Caves
Great Basin NP incl Lehman Caves pics (album #60))
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