Category: Venturing Out and About

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Missoula 2022

We arrived in Missoula the Thursday afternoon before my niece’s wedding.  I had gotten a last-minute reservation at the local KOA, so I was a bit apprehensive about the site we would get.   A couple weeks prior they had no openings for our stay; so when I called back and they had something, I was very happy.   We had originally thought we might stay at the ranch or at the local hip-camp.   When we drove over to the ranch to help set up for the next day’s event, I was surprised by the 10-ton bridge weight limit I would have had to cross.  We are close to 20 tons…

It turned out we really lucked out and the KOA gave us a very nice campsite with a very big tree for shade!

We had been struggling with our toad’s A/C only blowing cold air from the defroster and floor vents for about a year since last year’s Mississippi River trip.  When originally calling around to get it fixed, the dealers were talking thousands of dollars in repairs as the whole dashboard needed to be removed to get to the system to fix it.

Recently I had re-posted my question about the issue on a Chevy forum, and someone answered that my issue was a bit different than what the Chevy dealers were quoting; that the Mode Door Actuator was the problem and it was a lot simpler to repair than what the Chevy dealers were telling me about.

I then watched a Youtube Video on the repair and knew that was my issue with the A/C.  I must have called 20 places while in Wyoming and Colorado and was only hearing they had no openings for weeks.   I finally decided to call the Chevy dealer in Missoula a few weeks prior to getting there, and the service gal told me they could do it, but had no openings till the week after we would be leaving Missoula.  Then she said if I brought it in early the day after we arrived, she would squeeze it in.  YES!

That morning I brought it in and they fixed it in a few hours.   Two weeks later and we still have air coming out of the dash instead of the defroster!!  Wow.  It’s been really hot this summer and it took a long time for the car to cool off with the cold air blowing everywhere but at you!

We drove over to help with anything we could for the wedding on Friday afternoon, mainly moving things like beverages, chairs and coolers around the barn and adding ice to the coolers.

The wedding was a fantastic event, and the weather totally cooperated.  I did learn something new at the event.  I asked someone why all the cowboys where wearing sunglasses and was told, no one wants to see cowboys crying.  🙂

 

The next day we went with Chris and Shelly for lunch at Notorious P.I.G. restaurant downtown in his rented model Y Tesla.   It’s a pretty nice car.  I really liked the display showing all the cars around you.  That may be a feature of the self-driving mode which it had.  Chris said he used that during the drive from CDA to Missoula the day prior.

We headed over after lunch on Sunday to help with the cleanup.  There was a lot to move from the barn to the house and a small truckload of borrowed tables/chairs and cooler to go back to Julia’s work.   After that we went back to the bus and passed out.

 

 

The rest of the time in Missoula we mostly visited with the family that was still there and cleaned the inside and outside of the bus.

On Thursday morning we headed northwest to CDA to visit with the new in-laws.

 

 

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Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.

We headed up the mountain after staying a single night at St. Vrain State Park which was outside of Longmont, Colorado.  If you do stay at St. Vrain, pick a spot as far west as they have available.  The eastern edge fronts the I-25.  From our western-most site, we couldn’t hear the freeway.

It’s a bit of a twisty road heading up toward Estes Park, but a fairly short drive from Longmont.  We camped at Elk Meadow Lodge & RV Resort.  It’s not even close to being a resort.   No paved roads, not even gravel, just dirt; and when the wind blows — and it really can blow — it creates a dust bowl effect.  The sites are terraced into a small hillside, but for some reason, they didn’t make them level when they easily could have.   Some of the sites had a small area cut out of the hillside so the picnic table could be level.  Our site didn’t have that feature, the table listed at probably 10 degrees from level.   That said, it was a great base camp for seeing the RMNP and Estes Park.

 

That first evening we walked to a restaurant right out the driveway a friend had recommended and tried the Devils on Horseback.  They were delicious, quite a unique taste!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first morning there we headed to the Rocky Mountain National Park gate to get in the park prior to 9 am when you must have a reservation to go to the western area of the park.  (Bear Lake area needs you to be inside prior to 5 am)   We drove out to the Alpine Visitor Center, which was about 25 miles of steep, twisty mountain road.  The views along the way were pretty spectacular and there are many overlooks along the way.  It was a beautiful morning to head out there.

For some reason the Bear Lake area of the park requires reservations from 5 am till 6 pm, and the rest of the park needs them from 9 am to 3 pm.  This National Park reservation thing is very new, starting last year.  I had not heard of it prior to a few weeks before.

I looked at making a reservation for Bear Lake, but there was nothing available the whole time we were going to be in the area.  (Bummer!)  I really didn’t want to get up at 4 am to drive there in the dark before a reservation was needed.   Lucky for us, Kathy read something about the reservations.gov site selling tickets every evening at 5 pm for the next day.  Seems they hold some reservations back.   So that evening I was ready with a CC and on the site just prior to 5 pm.  I was able to purchase a reservation for 10 am the next morning!  $2 is what they cost at the moment (2022).

The next morning we left a bit before 10 and got into the park fairly quickly.   We sure love the fact that we purchased a senior park pass back in 2017 for $10 at Montezuma’s Castle.  That thing has saved us many hundreds of dollars in park entrance fees and even more in camping fees at certain types of government facilities.  Two times into the park from the Estes Park side would have been another $60 ($30 each day), but the pass waived those fees.    It’s pretty amazing what that $10 investment 5 years ago has saved us.  And what a nice benefit for seniors!

We got to the turn for Bear Lake and there was another line to get thru a checkpoint where they again validated your reservation time and whether it was for the Bear Lake road.    It’s only about 10 miles of more twisty road to get to the lake.   It’s also very crowded as it seems everyone wants to go there.  The park service wants you to park about 1/2 the way there and take a shuttle bus.  We decided to ignore those signs and drive all the way up there.  That parking lot was fairly small, but the parking gods were with us and we lucked out and found the one parking spot that was open when we drove in.  It was even at the front!

The lake is a very short hike from the parking lot, a few hundred feet.  We had to take turns going there as Dusty wasn’t allowed on the trails.  It’s a pretty lake and an easy hike.  Kathy made it all the way around it.  At 9,500 feet elevation that’s still saying something!  I guess this place is so popular as it’s such an easy hike?   It was nice, but based on the popularity/reservation restrictions, I was assuming there would be something spectacular there.  I personally thought the way out to the Alpine Visitor Center was much closer to “spectacular”.

[A lot of the hikes started from that area to other lakes, waterfalls, and just beautiful hiking trails.]

The rest of the week we spent as tourists in Estes Park proper.   Went out to see the Stanley Hotel, which was the model Stephen King used for The Shining, but didn’t actually film here.)

There is a small riverwalk downtown that was very nice.  Going into the town on the weekend is a zoo.  Bumper-to-bumper traffic all day.  And it’s not easy to bypass that area, even to get to a grocery store from Elk Meadows.   There were some signs downtown saying they want to kill the proposed bypass the town wants to build, but it’s really needed.  If you were a local resident, you would really need to plan your day to avoid going anywhere because of that super-congested area.

 

 

 

 

 

We never did see any elk at Elk Meadows.   But we did see the cutest little Black Mini Schnauzer a lot as the couple next door walked their 6 month old often.

 

 

 

 

 

RMNP Pictures:

 

 

July 19th thru the 26th.

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Manitou Springs morning walk

As I had mentioned in a prior post, we wanted to come back to walk around Manitou Springs some morning.   Today was the day.   Lots of touristy shops and restaurants and nice parks, and surprisingly lots of springs plumbed right into buildings or rocks on the side of the road.  Some a bit ornate, others just look like they grew there.  There were a few signs that explained the mineral content of each spring.

We walked uphill on the shady sidewalk till Kathy said she could go no more..  Then we went back down the other side of the narrow roadway, with cars and buses heading up the hill to the cog railway station, till we were done shopping and found a place to get lunch on the patio.

July 16th 2022

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Garden of the Gods and the Academy Chapel

This was another place I found when we got to Colorado Springs and figured we would make a trip over to check it out.   It was a pretty amazing place.  You’d think it was a national park, but it’s actually a city park.   There are some pretty amazing rock formations of vibrant colors with smooth sidewalks paved to wander around all of them.   And another amazing thing is there wasn’t a charge to visit.  Most of the national parks are around $30 a day now.  I kept driving thinking I would find the pay station, but there wasn’t one.  Nice!

I call them rocks, but they were really 1,000-foot-tall mountains that just looked like one big rock.  It’s something you must see if visiting Colorado Springs and only have an hour or two.

I looked up the Air Force Academy Chapel to find out its hours, and it’s closed till 2027 for repairs.  What a bummer.   2027 is a long way away, there must be something terribly wrong with it.   July 16th 2022

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Pikes Peak Cog Railway Trip

We purchased reserved seats for the Cog Railway out of Manitou Springs to the top of Pikes Peak for a 9:20 am departure.  We arrived early as everything we read said parking was scarce.  And it really was; but as we got there around 8:20, an hour before, we had no issues.  There was so little parking up there, I bet the 10 am train folks would be either walking a mile or two or would have to take a shuttle from parking down in the town.

Boarding time arrived fairly quickly and we found our seats.  We were in one of the older trains and the seats were two abreast and faced the two seat in front of you.  My knees were touching the seat in front of me.  Yikes!  Lucky for me a small child sat there. Some tall guys were across the aisle from us and their legs were straddling each other.   And then, we both lucked out even further as a woman gave up her seat a row in front of us to sit with friends elsewhere in the coach, and the folks in the seats facing us could move ahead to be with the rest of their family.  Wow!!   If I ever had to go again, I would buy all 4 seats for two of us.   The newer trains may have more room.  Looked like it from a distance.

The engine was fairly loud and roared all the way up to the top; and coming down, seemed a bit louder.   It’s a single-lane track with occasional sidings to allow trains to pass each other.  My thought is it’s normal to pass two trains on each way as they leave about 40 minutes apart.   It’s an extremely steep grade, so it makes sense they use a cog (gear) to keep moving at a safe speed.  It’s probably even more important when going back down.

The ride is about 1 1/2 hours each way with about 40 minutes at the top.  It’s windy and cold up there.  It was close to 90 in Colorado Springs and probably 40 at the top.   It’s over 14,000 feet, and you will notice how thin the air is just moving around, and the stairs will have you huffing and puffing in a few steps!  I guess one of the features of being up there is you get to see kids throwing up.  We got to see a couple.  Not sure if the parents had them eating at the snack bar or it was just the lack of oxygen or possibly a combination of both.  That part is not mentioned in the brochure.

I had purchased two cans of oxygen at a local store prior to going there just in case.  They are both still unopened.  I had read about them always being out of them at the top.  I didn’t see anyone else using them.  Ours never came out of the backpack.  They are in thin aluminum canisters that seem to be empty as they are so light.

Anyway, beautiful views in all directions while we were there.  We had picked a perfect day, hardly any clouds in the sky.   I had forgotten you can also drive to the top.  I was talking to a guy that had driven his Tesla up with his family.   I bet that regenerative braking was very helpful on the way back down!  I heard there was a brake check on the way down where someone comes out and lets you know if you can go further or not based on your brakes.  (temperature?) Not sure what happens if they determine your brakes are a problem.

The trip up and back down were uneventful, until the boy in the seat ahead of us started throwing up out the window.  Felt bad for him.  When we drove back down through Manitou Springs, we noticed it had a pretty nice old downtown and we would come back and visit if we had time later in the week.

July 14th 2022

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Royal Gorge, Canon City, Cripple Creek and Victor Colorado

We left the convergence and drove about 30 miles east to a nice small campground just up the road from the Royal Gorge.  I didn’t know much about it but decided we would visit and know a lot more.

After setting up in our campsite, we drove over to the gorge that afternoon.  It was very hot that day, so we just drove around to see what was there.  It struck me as odd, the bridge over the gorge was this huge suspension bridge and it seemed to go nowhere.   We decided to come back the next morning when it would be a lot cooler.

The next morning we drove back over there and paid to go into the “park”.  Turns out this whole thing is really an amusement park.  The bridge was built over the gorge strictly as a tourist attraction.  On the other side of the bridge, which you can only walk across now, is the amusement park.

We decided to take the gondolas across then walk back over the bridge; but after being in line for it for about 15 minutes, they shut it down due to high winds.  And it was very windy!

There were also two ziplines that originated on the other (uphill) side of the gorge and people were zipping over.  They came in very fast, and there were rubber blocks on the line that slowed them down very quickly.  I was thinking whiplash might be a real possibility.  Those ziplines are over a thousand feet in the air.   Hard to imagine that.

After the gondolas were shut down, we walked down to the beginning of the bridge, then out on it about halfway across.   We were glad we didn’t bring Dusty as it was so windy out there we probably would have needed to carry him or he could blow away!  I could feel the bridge moving and that’s not a comforting feeling.  We snapped a few pics and proceeded back across while watching my footsteps as there were a lot of older boards that didn’t look so sturdy to me anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve crossed a lot of bridges in my life, but I do not remember one that was anywhere near as high off the ground as this one.  It was about 1,000 feet above the Arkansas River below.  Interestingly, I saw a RxR track running alongside the river way down there.

When we left there, we headed toward Canon City, just a few miles east of the gorge.  I had read something about Skyline Drive, so I decided to use that route to get into town.  That was quite a drive, not for the faint of heart.  Narrow one lane (lucky for us, one way also)  that traverses the top of a mountain ridge all the way to town.   There were a few parts that my acrophobia kicked in and it was all I could do to stay in the middle of that road and look at nothing else.  The dash-cam video shows just how small and high it is.   It comes out at the bottom of the hill after a few switchbacks right into a residential neighborhood.

First Half of Skyline Drive

 

Not  far from the base of the end of Skyline Drive was the Colorado Prison Museum.  We drove by and they didn’t allow dogs inside and it was way too hot to leave him in the car.

I did get to see the gas chamber they used there.  Interesting gadget.  The walls were very thick steel, something I would have expected on a diving bell to see the bottom of the Marianas Trench, not something for using at sea level.

The following day we headed up to Cripple Creek, an old mining town in the mountains.  What a beautiful drive with everything green as far as you could see, miles and miles of trees and meadows with some cattle grazing along the way.

We got into town and we decided to drive thru it to see Victor first and then come back to CC.  On the way to Victor, we saw a very tall pile of dirt, I mean really, really tall and wide. It turns out it’s an active gold mine, a big open pit, but there appeared to be no way to see into it.  We drove for a few more miles, the whole time the wall of dirt was just to the left of us.

We arrived in Victor and it’s a really nice little mountain town, lots of old buildings.  We stopped at a small parking area across from the fire station and city hall.  Nice mural right there.   I saw a fireman outside washing his rig, so I went over to talk to him, figuring he knew a lot about this town.  I knew nothing.

He turned out to be a wealth of information, and the best part was he knew a way to see into the big strip mine just up the road.   We wandered around the town for a little bit, then headed out, remembering the directions to the overlook.  They were a bit vague, but we found it anyway.

And it was spectacular!  Even the platform was over the top, made out of the bed of one of the old ore hauling truck beds with a platform and stairs welded into it.  Quite an impressive structure.  And the view from it into the mine was great.   It’s an active mine and we saw trucks moving ore to and fro.

Turns out they produce more than half a billion dollars of gold per year.  Not chump change!   I didn’t know we had much gold mining in the US.

The pit is Huge, yes, with a capital H, huge.

After spending time to take it all in, we headed back to Cripple Creek and along the way stopped at an old shaft gold mine that is now a tourist attraction.  There is a mine elevator that takes you down 1,000 feet and then you can explore the tunnels.  No dogs allowed and it was still very hot, so I just took a picture of the double-decker elevator that had just a single cable hauling it up and down.  Looked like a single point of failure to my eyes.

We drove the few miles into Cripple Creek, and the first thing you notice in the small town are the 500-foot-high cranes you see when they build skyscrapers, and they appear to be building some right in downtown.  I wasn’t really impressed by the town.  It appeared to only be a casino town.  Lots and lots of casinos.  Nothing much else there.

We wanted to get lunch, and there was nowhere that allowed pets and almost all were actually part of a casino.   We couldn’t even find a takeout place.  Sad.  We did find a nice pavilion on a slight hill with picnic tables in the shade to eat some snacks we brought for the drive.   It was odd, there wasn’t even a Subway to get  a sandwich in the town.  And they seem to be everywhere you look.

We noticed big, dark clouds in the west (the direction we had to go back) and I called the local police station asking about this other road I could see on the map that went almost directly south toward our campground, 50 miles away or so.    The dispatcher said it’s not a road for the faint hearted nor is it ever maintained as it goes along the river on a ledge for miles.  So no go.

We drove toward the storm.   But missed it, only skirting the edges and got a few sprinkles.   But when we got back to the coach, the wind was blowing hard and it started raining buckets of water.  I was glad I wasn’t driving a mountain road in that.

The next morning I drove down to the prison museum by myself and took the tour.  Pretty underwhelming.  Old and musty place.  It was worth the $3 to get in, but just barely.

The next morning we were off to Colorado Springs.

 

July 10th thru the 13th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Salida Colorado

We arrived at Poncha Springs Fairgrounds to attend an Xscapers convergence for July 4th, 2022.  We would be spending 8 nights dry camping and with only 30 amp power.  We were hoping it wouldn’t get too hot as that amount of power will only sustain 1 air conditioner running at a time.

We are starting to get used to Colorado weather: Thunderstorms each afternoon with high winds and often hail.  So far only pea gravel sized hail, so just a bit noisy and no damage.   The good part is those storms really cool off the afternoons nicely.   We got to meet a lot of folks we had not met before and a few we had.

A day into the event I met Chip who was parked a few rigs down from us.  He came by to ask if we were experiencing low voltage.  I said I didn’t know and proceeded to look for my multimeter.  At that moment we were getting 115v, which is fine.  But later in the afternoon I checked it again and we were at 104v, not good at all.  That’s when I realized I had nothing but the multimeter to measure voltage.  My smart plugs only measured watts used, but not the more important voltage.  After researching there was really nothing available that would measure voltage and log it somewhere.  So I did the next best thing.  I ordered one of these real-time meters from Amazon.  Hughes Autoformers Dual Color DVM, LED Digital Voltmeter .

About a week later, it had worked so well I purchased another one to go onto the other side of the incoming hot wires.  It doesn’t log anything, but at a glance you can read the voltage.   If the voltage is 108v or higher, the back ground is green; if below that it’s red, easily seen and unmistakable.   I saw that red color a lot while camped at the convergence.

The next morning I decided to test out my special Y cable that is supposed to combine the 30 amp outlet with a 15/20 amp outlet to give you about 45 amps.  It did not work, specifically it doesn’t work if the 20 amp outlet has a GFI, which these all did.

I also noticed my existing Surge Guard didn’t even allow the 30 amp to work as the other leg was dead.  (L1 & L2 make a 50 amp connection)

It was then I noticed the other pedestal at the front of the bus and looked in there.  Low and behold, there was a 50 amp plug.  I got out my 50 amp extension and tried to plug it in, but someone mounted the outlet upside down.   The way the plugs work, there was a bar in the box that prevented it from connecting.

I walked over to the fairgrounds office and found the manager, explained my issue, and she tried to call the site supervisor.   He didn’t answer and she told me she would keep trying.  I left, and probably 1/2 hour later I saw him at the event building across the way.   (at least I saw his truck)   I found him and explained the issue.  He mentioned he knew about that but needed a certified electrician to do the work.  I asked if I could do it, it was a simple thing to rotate the outlet, and the breakers were right there next to it to shut off to make it safe.   That’s when he said he would do it, and we walked over and in 5 minutes it was fixed.  I was then able to plug into the 50 amp outlet.  That didn’t really solve the voltage issue, but having two legs of power kept the voltage above 108v the rest of the time, not great, but way better than before.  And now on the hotter afternoons we could run both AC’s if needed.

We decided to hang back at the fairground to watch the fireworks with a bunch of others in their camp chairs.   It was about 4 miles from downtown Salida, so the fireworks were spectacular but the sounds were way off due to the distance and the difference in the speed of light vs sound waves.  But we got to see fireworks.  Really hadn’t seen any since the Pandemic started.  We almost could see them while in Memphis last summer, but they were too far away to feel like you really got to watch them.

The next evening was the Lot Crawl, but just prior a big storm moved in and it rained for a couple hours.  Usually the afternoon storms were done by 5, but not today.   Kathy and I had made our Fireball Jello shots for the crawl and they went over well.  There was only one left at the end of the evening and it was really, really good! (I got it)

They had moved the Lot Crawl into the event building due to the weather.  We were hoping it wouldn’t be a super spreader event.  No one got sick from what we heard.  Some folks were saying a lot of folks caught it at the Escapade which occurred a few weeks before this event not very far from here, over in Rock Springs, Wyoming.

I think it was the next night after the Lot Crawl we had a band (The Status Crowes) play for us.   We had heard them at the Bash a couple years back and they were pretty good.

One morning on the way back from town, I stopped in a gun store.  It had to be the biggest one I had ever seen.  They had so many rifles and handguns it reminded me of an armament museum I checked out in Cody, Wy, a few years ago.  Something that I had never seen prior, and didn’t think were actually legal in the US, were silencers or suppressors for rifles and handguns.  Some of the handguns I looked at had threads for the silencers.   Wow.

The next weekend we stumbled upon their yearly Brewers Rendezvous down at the Riverside Park in Salida.  It looked like a big deal, there were at least 60 brewers there.

There were a lot of Starlink users at this event.  I got to see many different mounting options for the dishy.     When we get home this year, I will probably turn off three of my 100GB Data SIMs and replace them with a Starlink setup.   Starlink’s monthly is about $70 less per month than those 3 SIMs, and Starlink now allows you to turn off your service when you don’t need it. (for us that’s about 6 months of the year when we aren’t traveling in the motorhome)   The SIMs cannot be turned off when we aren’t traveling.   We will see what’s available from SpaceX this winter.

July 2nd thru 10th.

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Silverton Colorado

We got to Silverton around lunch time and figured it was too early to check into the campground, so we looked for a shady spot to park the bus for a while and maybe fix some lunch.   We found one next to the courthouse.   It was on the west side and had beautiful grass and big trees providing shade till around noon this time of year.

After lunch and a walk for Dusty, we unhitched the car while there and then headed to the campground to check in.   After checking in, they lead us to our spot, which was one spot away from an odd-colored creek.  The water looked clear but the rocks were an orange-ish color.

The next morning we heard the whistles from the steam locomotive that brings tourists from Durango via a narrow gauge railway track.   I wanted to see that.  It’s not often you get to see a working steam engine, let alone one that is run every day of the year.   It is very cool to see!

I wanted to ride on it, but we were at the wrong end to do that.   We could ride it down to Durango, but then we probably would have to stay overnight to get a ride back.  Or maybe a very expensive Uber ride.   That wasn’t a very good option, so I  had to watch it leave a little while later.

I talked to the engineer for a while, and they had just converted it from coal to oil fired a couple years ago as they had started a huge fire a while back from the sparks that the coal emits from the stacks.   I cannot remember how many gallons of water they hold, but he did say they fill up halfway up and back to keep enough water.  This locomotive was built in 1927 and has been running constantly since.  In 5 years it will be 100 years old.  Wow!

You cannot believe how much oil leaks from all the moving parts.  Their oil can for filling the lube cups at each joint is the largest one I have ever seen.   When that is filled, it would last me twenty years of adding drops of oil on things I need to lube (not very often anymore.)

Watching that locomotive leave was almost breathtaking for a gearhead like me.  Below is a link to a video I shot of it leaving Silverton station.

LocomotiveLeavingSilverton

After watching it go on its journey back to Durango, we went looking for a place to eat lunch with the pup.  We found Natalia’s 1912 restaurant with a shaded outdoor patio you can just make out on the left side of the building.  The red umbrellas can just be made out in this screen grab from Google. They even had someone playing music toward the back.   The burgers were tasty and they brought a water bowl out for Dusty.

After a late lunch, we wandered all around the town going into every shop.  There were some interesting shops, even a blacksmith who gives lessons.  Someone was there with him making something, but I wasn’t sure what and really didn’t want to bother them with questions.

Silverton was a fun small mountain town to visit.    One thing of note was the elevation:  I noticed there was a bit more breathing to be done while moving about due to the thinner air at 9,500 feet.

We loved the paint job on this house in town, so we had to share a picture:

 

I will leave you this question posed by a tee shirt I saw in a window in town….

[Yes?]

June 25th thru 27th

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Million Dollar Highway drive to Silverton.

I had read about the Million Dollar Highway for many years and knew I wanted to see it.  This was the year!  We were spending a lot of time in Colorado to keep in the higher elevations, hoping it would be cooler up there for the summer.  That turned out to be a quite right assumption.

I verified the highway is a Truck Route using the Rand McNally Truck Route Map Book.   We left Ridgeway Park in the early morning to make sure we avoided the afternoon thunderstorms while driving the MDH.   We were camping in Silverton that night.

The road tightens up probably 1,000 feet just south of Ouray.   It gets very narrow and very windy with sheer cliff within a few inches of the white line.  No distractions, please!   Kathy was gripping the hand rail by her seat with a death grip as I rounded the corners, so close to the edge I couldn’t look that way or bad things might happen.   Lucky for us that part was only about 10 minutes of the drive, but it did seem like a few hours at the time.   And it’s only a 24-mile drive from Ouray to Silverton.  Stunning views once I was able to look at them again when we got away from the cliff edges.

The rest of the drive was uneventful.  There was a nice overlook not much past the twistys.  We stopped there just to make sure nothing had fallen off and down the cliff, and also to allow blood to flow back into our hands after the death grips we experienced.  There is an 11,000+ pass you must ascend and descend about 1/2 way between the two towns.   I don’t know how anyone goes down those big grades without an engine braking system. (Jake or Pac Brake)

June 25th

 

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Telluride Colorado

The day after we went to Ouray, we drove over to Telluride for a day trip.  We got there fairly early and were able to find a parking space quickly.   We walked over to the gondola and looked for a gondola with paw prints on the side, which indicated we could bring Dusty on it.   Then we were off, climbing to 10k feet, where the car stopped and then proceeded to head downward to Mountain Village.   While it was stopped for a few seconds, we saw a great poster on the wall of 5 Labrador Retrievers in a gondola with goggles and headgear on.  Very cute!  Kathy didn’t buy the coffee mug of this picture while on top, so she had to find the studio in town to get it when she changed her mind!!

We arrived at the village a few minutes later.   By this time we were looking for breakfast or lunch and settled for brunch in a very nice outdoor restaurant.  Afterward we wandered around the village for a little while and then boarded another pawed gondola for the ride back down to Telluride.   Once there we walked over to a farmers market that was taking up a side street going up the hill.  The farmers markets in Colorado do have some veggies along with the other stuff.

Overall Telluride was a nice small town, Mountain Village was more of an upscale destination with the requisite prices to go along with that.  I personally liked Ouray more, and would skip Telluride, unless you want to take the lifts up for mountain biking.  (or skiing in the winter) .

June 24th