Laundry Day in Durango

Sunday, June 7 – After being on the road for a week, reality inevitably sets in as the dirty laundry piles up. So, we made an early morning trip to a Durango laundromat. Three loads. We then had another great breakfast at Carver Bakery and Brewing Co. Yes, you read that correctly. No beer was sampled at breakfast. Promise.

We stayed two nights at the historic, Victorian Strater Hotel right on Main Avenue, a couple of blocks from the train station. We highly recommend it. It added a great authenticity to the whole experience. There was even a horse and a mule out front this morning. We chatted with the owner for a bit, and he said that they are working animals. He just brings them downtown once in a while, since he sometimes gets a free beer out of it.

Pit Stop in Silverton

Saturday, June 6 – After the 3-1/2 hour ride on the train from Durango, we had about two hours of free time in the old mining town of Silverton, which now has a year-round permanent population of about 400. For lunch we stopped at Grumpy’s Saloon in the Grand Imperial Hotel, which was complete with the man playing old sing-a-long classics on the tinny piano. In the video, make sure not to miss the guy in the red jacket at the bar who, out of the blue, just started playing his harmonica along with the piano. Also note the fine artwork on the walls.



And, talk about a literal 4-way stop, right behind the hotel…

All Aboard!

Saturday, June 6 – Today was a big day: A full day excursion on the historic Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. We had originally wanted to do one of their adventure packages, which included a several-hour-long zipline tour through the Ponderosa pine treetops. However, when we looked at the weather forecast the day before, it looked pretty bad with high winds and thunderstorms in the forecast. So, we decided not to book it. We ended up regretting that decision the next morning, when it was sunny and pleasant at 8:30am. That was a bummer, but the day was still great.

We literally took about 300 pictures as the train cut through Animas River valley along the rocky cliffs. The train took 3-1/2 hours to get to Silverton, which is about a 46 mile trip. We went about the same speed as it did back when the railroad opened in 1881 – no faster than 18 mph. However, you didn’t really want it to go very much faster, since everyone was hanging out the windows trying to take the perfect picture.

This video captured one of the more picturesque moments of the train ride.

And for whatever reason, there is some sort of biological urge to wave at a train when it passes by. No matter who you are, young or old, trains are just fun.

A Taste of Durango

Friday, June 5 – We got to town right after dark, and it was hoppin. We were starved, so we went to get some dinner at - yes, you guessed it – one of the local microbreweries, Steamworks Brewing Co. Instead of just trying two beers, we got a sampler of all six brews that they had on tap. Our two favorites were Lizard Head Red (our second Lizard beer this weekend), and Steam Engine Lager, their first and most popular beer, which has won a bunch of awards.. And the glasses weren’t as big as they look in the photo. Honest.

Cliff Dwellings: Prime Real Estate

Friday, June 5 – Mesa Verde: our 6th National Park in five days. However, this one was a complete change of pace: no more red rock. It’s the only national park dedicated to archeological ruins. The dwellings here date back to 1200 and earlier, but they weren’t discovered until the late 1800’s because they are in such a remote location on the Colorado Plateau. The ruins of the cliff dwellings are pretty amazing – like multi-story condos built of stone in the alcoves in the cliffs.

Say this ten times fast: “Ancestral Puebloan Cliff Dwellings.” Yeah, we couldn’t do it either.

Whenever you enter a national park, they give you some nice handouts. There’s usually a nice colorful map outlining some of the highlights and a newspaper from the park that contains some articles, info on hiking trails, etc. When entering Mesa Verde, they gave us an additional flyer entitled “Rocky Roads Ahead,” since there are a lot of roads alongside cliffs. It contained our most favorite illustration to date – a guy driving a convertible looking over the edge taking pictures while rocks are falling, with some pretty deadpan instructions: “Avoid rocks rolling toward your vehicle,” and “Do not approach fallen rocks.”

In addition to the cliff dwellings, the landscape was pretty beautiful, too. The name Mesa Verde means “green table,” which pretty much gives you a good visual for what the plateau looks like. However, there was a devastating forest fire here in 2000, and much of the park still is scarred with burned trees . We drove out of the park as the sun was setting, and the views were spectacular as we drove down off the mesa back and forth along the side of the cliffs.

Four Corners madness

Friday, June 5 – Ok, so we know that the Four Corners Monument is not on Conde Nast Traveler’s top vacation destinations, but since we were so close, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be in four states at once. Even our great guidebook, The Rough Guide to Southwest USA, only gave it a paragraph saying, “However exciting you may find the concept, the reality is bleak and dull. A steady stream of visitors mooch around the pivotal brass plaque, contorting a limb into each state for demeaning photographs.”

Guilty.

However, there was one hilarious family there that took it to the next level. Mom, Dad and two teenage girls were having a blast trying to take self portraits. It was really windy out there in the middle of the reservation, so the girls started to ham it up, as pictured here. They also thought we were pretty funny with the banana, so when they left, they said, “Bye, banana people.” They asked for our blog address, so hopefully they’ll see that they made it into the blog.

Colorado!

Friday, June 5 – Great to see new landscape! You also know you’re back in farm country when traffic is held up – in both directions – by farm equipment.

Some of the southwest scenery still exists, though. Note the butte in the background behind the tractors.