Million Dollar Highway

The Million Dollar Highway through the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado is well named -- georgous scenery at every turn.    We spent a day driving along the Million Dollar Highway, and visiting the towns of Silverton and Ouray.  Silverton and Ouray (pronounced "Your Ray") are old mining towns that are now tourist towns.  We lunched in Silverton and had dinner in Ouray, and enjoyed the breathtaking drive in between. 

In Silverton we found Notorious  Blair Street, once the red light district, now an interesting collection of shops and restaurants.  Most of the shops are only open during midday for the tourists that arrive by the scenic railway from Durango. The last train back to Durango leaves at 3 PM, then everything closes.

Ouray, a busy tourist town, surrounded by mountains, was a fun place to eat and people-watch. 

For more pictures of the Million Dollar Highway, Silverton and Ouray, click here: Million Dollar Hwy, Ouray And Silverton  (34 photos)

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park was something I've wanted to see for years.  After our first attempt was interrupted by the deer encounter, we realized that the National Park visitor center was actually closer to Ridgeway than to Gunnison, so we revised our plans and after our first night at Ridgeway State Park we headed for the National Park. 

 

 

See more pictures of The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park here:  Black Canyon (24 pictures)

 

 





Colorado Rocky Mountain High, 2

As we headed west from Gunnison to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park,  again the scenery was absolutely spectacular!  The Blue Mesa Reservoir provided deep blue contrast to the surrounding hillsides, mesas, rocks, and road.  It's gorgeous! 

Unfortunately we didn't make it to the Black Canyon.  We were about 3 miles from the turnoff when a deer came up the steep bank from the lake and jumped into our car!

We are fine, and the car is drivable -- just the bumper and front headlight were damaged and the hood's a little pushed in.  The deer walked away!   But instead of continuing on, we turned back, returning to the campground to Gunnison so Jim could temporarily patch up the bumper.

To see more of the journey from Gunnison to Deer Crossing, click here:  Gunnison to Deer Crossing (19 shots)



  

The deer encounter was on Saturday.  On Monday we visited  Gunnison Country Collision and had along chat with the owners -- a couple originally from Pennsylvania.   Anyway, Marty, the owner agreed with Jim that there's nothing wrong under the hood, and the hood latch is good.   As it would take around two weeks to get parts and repair it, we were leaning towards delaying repairs until we return home.  Marty assured us that this would be okay, that the Subaru was up to the task.  Our insurance agent agreed with this plan, so, the next day we set off for another leg of our journey.   Our car is no longer photogenic enough for those Subaru like ads. 

 

Here's the last before shot:

 

We travelled the same road past Blue Mesa Reservoir without incident, enjoying  the beauty as we went.  We drove over a pass and then through a canyon and then everything turned green as we passed through a beautiful valley. 

 

Eventually we came to Montrose, surrounded by what looked like Sand Dunes. 

From here we travelled south on US 550 to Ridgeway State Park.

We arrived at Ridgeway State Park without a reservation, but knowing there were sites available.  We were told that we could only book for two nights, and for each additional night we wanted, we had to come back to the check-in booth, one day at a time, and if our site wasn't reserved by someone else, we could have it.  Or we could reserve online or by phone, also one day at a time, and pay an extra $10 reservation fee for each night.  Very complicated and a lot of extra work for the person in the check-in booth, as well as inconvenient for the camper.  But evidently, that's they way they work It in Colorado State Parks.  Oh well.  We managed to stay four nights by following their stupid procedure. 

But the campground was lovely, quiet, had a great view, and was convenient to what we wanted to do over the next few days.

The first evening we were visited by several mule deer.  Beautiful animals that reminded us of our unpleasant encounter with their cousin.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For pictures of our route from Gunnison to Ridgeway Park, click here: Gunnison to Ridgeway State Park  (53 photos)

 

Colorado, Rocky Mountain High

Road trips through beautiful scenery are a big part of our travel.  We spent several days travelling along very scenic US50 across south central Colorado. Without too many words, we'd like to share some of what we loved about this drive. This will be in several sections as we describe each leg we travelled.

Leaving Colorado Springs on 115 South we headed to 50 East.  The first part of the pictures were taken the day we went to Royal Gorge.  The next day we travelled the same route, although further, past the Royal Gorge turnout, as the sun was beginning to set.   

To see more pictures of this leg of our trip click here:
Colorado Springs to Sweetwater

Just outside of Cotapaxi we came across a small campground called Sweetwater River Ranch. We were surrounded by mountains, on the edge of the Arkansas River.    

A hanging bridge beckoned us to explore the other side of the river the next day, but when we tried to cross it the fierce winds dissuaded us.  (It could have been an amusement park ride!)

Bagging the plan to hike,  we headed west a few miles to Cotapaxi, a small town nearby, and then retraced our steps (by car) through the Bighorn Sheep Canyon to the Royal Gorge turnoff, and then back to Sweetwater.

To see pictures of the beautiful Bighorn Sheep Canyon, click here:  Sweetwater, Cotapaxi, and the Bighorn Sheep Canyon  (23 photos)

             

Leaving Sweetwater the next day, we headed to Gunnison. We had to go over Monarch Pass, 11316 feet in altitude.  The views were spectacular as we climbed.  And they kept changing.  At the summit we stopped to browse the souvenir shop and look at the displays about the mountains and the pass, then we began the slow descent to the valley.   


To see pictures of the travel from Sweetwater to Gunnison, click here: Sweetwater to Gunnison (36 pictures)

Gunnison is a college town with many shops and restaurants.  I wouldn't call it picturesque.  But it's a good location for day trips to the surrounding areas for hiking, skiing, fishing, or just looking.  Just looking was what we did as we set out for a day trip to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, about 50 miles away.  More on that in the next blog post.

 

Royal Gorge Bridge

When the Royal Gorge Bridge was built in 1929 it was a feat of engineering.  It was the tallest suspension bridge in the world.  Today, it is the 10th highest bridge in the world, but it still ranks as the tallest suspension bridge in North America.

The Royal Gorge Bridge spans the Royal  Gorge and is an impressive site.  It's not open to traffic, and never was  -- it's more like a bridge to nowhere, except the other side of the canyon. 

 

You can walk, ride a trolley, or drive across.  We did the first two. 

A train runs through the gorge, along the river,

  and crosses a hanging bridge, probably another engineering feat.

We did not take the aerial tram that crosses the canyon high above the bridge.

 

but we did take the incline railway down into the gorge to river level.  The incline railway is another engineering marvel. 

 

For more pictures of the Royal Gorge and Royal Gorge Bridge, click Royal Gorge

From Miners to Fossil Hunters

We took a day-trip out to Cripple Creek, an old gold-mining district to tour the Molly Kathleen Mine and following that we went to the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.

Molly Kathleen was the first woman to stake a claim in the gold mining district.  She was quite the entrepreneur -- since women weren't allowed to stake claims the claim was filed under her initials by her husband.  Once the entrance to the mine was opened, she allowed adjoining mines to be accessed through her entrance, charging an entrance fee. 

Before the tour we donned miner's jackets and hard hats.  Then we were squeezed into two elevators -- nine people into each 3-foot section of the double-cage.  We got to know each other very well as we descended 1000 feet to the base of the mine.

 

 

The mine was well-lit and wasn't as claustrophobic as we had anticipated.

 

The tour guide was excellent -- explaining how the mining procedures worked and how they evolved from everything being done by hand through the invention of machines to help in the mining process. 

We next stopped at the Cripple Creek Heritage center for a look at some interesting exhibits.  Then we drove  into the valley, which is an ancient caldera,

 

through the town but didn't stop, as it seemed to be door after door of casinos and bars.  With nothing of interest to us, we continued on to the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.  This giant area contains fossilized giant redwood tree stumps and the world's largest collection of insect fossils.

Another geology teaching:  Giant redwoods grew in a valley in Colorado 26 million  years ago.  A volcano filled the valley with mud and ash and covered the trees to a depth of about 16 feet and so the trees died off.   The debris from the volcano dammed an existing creek, filling the valley with water, creating a new lake.  For the next 100,000 years insects and plants settled in the sediments of the lake.  Later volcanic activity covered the lake and its sediments with more mud and ash.  During all this time, mud and water entered every cell of the buried redwood stumps, insects and plants, preserving them as fossils.   

Now the entire area is preserved as a National Monument.  We toured a brand new visitor center, looked at the exhibits and fossilized insects and plants, and walked on a trail through the fossil beds to see the giant redwood tree stump fossils. 

And then we headed back to Colorado Springs on yet another scenic road.

 

For more pictures of our outing to Cripple Creek and the Florissant Fossil Beds, including more fabulous scenery, click Miners and Fossils

Colorado means Colored Red

From the Garden of the Gods

 

 to the Red Rock Canyon

 

to the red cliffs around the Manitou Cliff dwellings, 

we kept looking in awe at the amazing red rocks. 

Where did they come from?  

A little geology lesson for those that are interested:

The red rocks of Colorado are sediment left from the ancestral Rocky Mountains. (Did you know there were Rocky Mountains about 320 million years ago, before the current Rocky Mountains?) This first set of Rockies  eroded and left red sand which was then covered by an shallow ocean for millions of years.  Slowly, the red sand turned to stone because of the pressure of the ocean and ocean sediments. Due to plate tectonics the second set of Rocky Mountains arose out of the ocean about 35 million years ago, and when this happened the red rocks were lifted from their horizontal position and tilted at strange angles.   Erosion of the modern Rockies helps to exaggerate the angles of the rocks and expose other sedimentary rocks that are various colors.  More on this in future blogs.

We don't have enough words to describe the beauty of nature that we've been seeing since we arrived in the southwestern Colorado Springs area.  Impressive, amazing, overwhelming, rugged, colorful … hopefully our pictures will help, although even great photos don't do it justice. 

To see more of the red rocks in the Colorado Springs area, click Garden of the Gods and Red Rock Canyon and Manitou Cliff Dwellings