Durango, Colorado

Day 19-21 - Durango, Colorado

Our drive to Durango was such an easy day. JUST 48 MILES! Marcia and I made a chili dinner for our guests and we hosted a Murder Mystery. Each guest received a character with clues and objectives. What a great time! Everyone really got into their character and did a great job on their outfits. The best dressed actress award went to Pat, the best actress award went to Mary, Tony won the prize for most money, and Bonnie was the only one who guessed the murderer correctly.

After dinner, some of us wandered down to Dave and Louisa’s rig for a little karaoke. Even though most of us couldn’t sing, we had fun trying.

The next day, we toured Silverton, Colorado. We took a bus from Durango to Silverton and had a wonderful bus driver who acted as our tour guide.

We arrived in Silverton about 11:30 a.m. which gave us plenty of time to shop and eat lunch.
The photo on the bottom left is Silverton’s first and oldest recorded bordello, purchased Sept. 16, 1878. By the end of 1880 it was one of the five buildings in the two blocks later to become “Notorious Blair Street” the core of the red light district. At its peak, Blair Street housed some 40 bordellos, saloons and boarding houses. Blair Street ran 24 hours a day. At night the uproar of music, singing, gambling, and drinking was horrendous. The Red Light Era died out in the early 1950s.

Everyone recommended “Handlebars” for lunch, which is where our whole group headed. What a great local place. All around the bar are pictures of their handlebar mustache patrons. While you dine, you can spend the entire time looking at all the artifacts they have collected. Not only is it an interesting place to visit, the food and service was excellent.

We were scheduled to ride back to Durango on a historical steam train the Durango & Silverton Railroad. The train tracks were completed in 1882 to haul silver and gold ore from the mountains, but it was soon realized that the view was truly precious. This scenic line has been in continuous operation ever since. The train has to make the 4% grade up the mountain and I can tell you it is slow going! We were so glad we took the bus from Durango up to Silverton and rode the train back. Even going downhill, it took us 3 ½ hours!

The train dropped us off in downtown Durango where we decided to take a look at one of the older hotels, The Strater Hotel, built in 1887.

The following day was A DAY OFF! We took a motorcycle ride up to Ouray, Colorado (known as Colorado’s Little Switzerland), along with one of our guests, Ken. What a great ride! The route took us the same way as our bus did to Silverton. We stopped in Silverton for a little more shopping, then on to Ouray. From Silverton to Ouray the road was definitely a motorcycle road. Curvy road, a lot of switchbacks and beautiful scenery.

It was so weird to see green hills on one side and pink hills on the opposite side of the road.

In 1882, prospector John Robinson discovered a massive pipeline of silver ore and staked the “Yankee Girl” claim. Unlike most local mines, the Yankee Girl shaft went nearly straight down – 1200 vertical feet. Eventually 12 levels were developed below ground. In places, silver ore assayed as high as $10,000 per ton making Yankee Girl one of the richest concentrations of silver ore in the United States. Ore from the mine was of such a high grade that it bypassed the concentraon mill and went directly to the smelter for processing. Yankee Girl was forced to close in 1898 with the decrease in the value of silver. During its 16 years of operation, it produced nearly $12 million in ore. The value of the ore in today’s market would be worth over $100 million.

We arrived in Ouray just in time for lunch. We actually debated that morning on whether we should ride to Ouray because thunderstorms were in the forecasts. We were so lucky that the only time it rained was while we were eating lunch. Not only did it rain, but there were pea size hail!

Cortez, Colorado

Day 17-18

On our way to Cortez, we stopped at “Hole N” The Rock. This location has been a travelers’ resting point for 2 centuries.

It is an interesting place. While walking around, I found many amusing things. A two-level outhouse
If you look closely, both are being used…..

Signs leading me to “Big Foot”, which was a big foot and if you look closely there is hair on the toes! I also found a homemade riding lawnmower and a jeep with multiple state license tags plastered all over it.

We also stopped at the Anasazi Heritage Center, which gave us insight to the history and culture of Ancestors of the Canyons. The local people do not use the term “Anasazi” to describe the ancient people who were cliff dwellers because Anasazi is a Pueblo word for ancient ancestors and the Navajo Indians feel that they were the first settlers, contrary to science belief.

Within Mesa Verde National Park, we visited Cliff Palace, which is the largest cliff dwellings in North America, containing 23 kivas, room used by modern Puebloans for religious rituals.

The first Ancestral Puebloans settled in Mesa Verde 1,400 years ago. Most of the cliff dwellings were built from the late 1190s to late 1270s. They range in size from one room houses to villages of more than 150 rooms (Cliff Palace). Ancestral Puebloans lived in the cliff dwellings for less than 100 years. By about 1300 Mesa Verde was deserted, possibly because of a drought and crop failures, possibly because soils, forests, and animals were depleted, possibly social and political problems….

As we drove through the canyon area, we found several areas which housed cliff dwellers. The park includes 4,500 archeological sites, 600 are cliff dwellings.

The terrain is amazing and I still find it hard to believe that they built the structures with so much foresight. Everything was planned for survival.

When it was time to leave our RV site in Cortez, it was difficult with such a beautiful view.

Black Canyon, Colorado

We spent a week close to Denver and enjoyed every minute of it. There are a lot of fun motorcycle roads in the area. But it was time to move on towards Las Vegas, stopping in Montrose, Colorado. After talking to a couple from Canada at Mt. Evans, we decided to take their advice and take a motorcycle ride around Rt. 92, called the West Elk Loop. So on to Montrose.

We decided to take the scenic route instead of the interstate highway.

After having our truck worked on in Denver, it didn’t do well over the mountains. It’s blowing black smoke, has no power and our gas mileage through the mountains was down to 6-7 mpg!!!!! We’re not sure what they did to it….. Might have to think about finding a mechanic in Las Vegas if this continues.

We reached Montrose just in time to go to bed

so that we could get up early the next morning for our ride. We found that our neighbor, Eric and Linda, from the Denver area was also camped here! They left the day before us. What a small world!

We were told it was supposed to rain, so we left home prepared. I love being prepared because it never rained!

I took this picture to show you just how big these mountains are.

We started out at Blue Mesa Dam. (I can’t even count at this point how many dams we’ve seen since we left home.)

The Colorado River Storage Project on the Upper Colorado River is the most complex and extensive river water development in the world. It includes drainage in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico – about 1/12 the continental area of the United States!
Once we started on Rt. 92, we found a dirt road to a lodge, so we decided to check it out.

It kept going

And going

And going.

Never did see the lodge. We finally turned around to get back on track. Rt. 92 has some beautiful overlooks. On one of them, we met a guy who is a helicopter pilot out of Texas who has been traveling for about 7 weeks on his Harley. He was almost done the loop and loved it so we just had to share our Mt. Evans adventure with him. There was another person trying to coax their child out of the car, but they were afraid of heights and had been petrified on the whole drive (glad they didn’t go to Mt. Evans! (in case you missed that day’s blog, go back and look at the pictures from Mt. Evans)

The overlook was gorgeous and very, very windy. Look at Bill’s jacket! We had to find a secluded picnic table to eat lunch to hide from the wind.

Bill kind of liked the way this rock was balancing.

The Curecanti Needle is a nearly vertical pinnacle of quartz monzonite rising about 700 feet above Morrow Point Lake and has been a trademark of the area for many years. The first emblem used by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in 1884 pictured the famous Curecanti Needle against the sun in the Black Canyon. The needle became a memorial to a brave engineer who lost his life trying to descend into the canyon by rope. (During the winter of 1881-82, over 1,000 men picked and shoveled away in the canyon to push the railroad westward.)

As we came around each curve the view was amazing.

Here are a few pictures looking down.

We came upon Black Canyon and took the ride up to the north rim, which was a dirt/gravel road. Black Canyon is described as “dramatic.” It was carved into the earth by the powerful Gunnison River. It is 2,700 feet deep and 53 miles long. It was originally designated a national monument in 1933, but was renamed a national park in 1999.

One attraction that’s hard to miss is the “Painted Wall.” It stands at 2,250 feet (that’s 1,000 feet taller than the Empire State Building). It’s the highest cliff in Colorado.

And of course the rest of the ride home was pretty.