Saturday morning before heading out from Grand Junction, we grabbed the map again and looked over our planned route. We were thinking about heading West on I-70 towards Green River and then down to Monticello... but after looking things over decided we would rather go down through Durango, Colorado and then across through Cortez so we could go to "Four Corners" and then up through Monticello. Like I said... we are spontaneous!!! We were excited to head out... Courtney doesn't really look that excited in the back seat!
We headed out of Grand Junction for Montrose, Colorado and then up over the mountains to Ouray. It was GORGEOUS from this point on. We are huge fans of the mountains....
When we got up above Ouray, which was a darling little town that we should have spent some time in... (but it was so busy with holiday weekend visitors...) we stopped for a few pictures...
Dan has been to the Swiss Alps and he said this sign was pretty accurate. It did remind him of Switzerland a little bit when we got up in these mountains... They were really jagged and beautiful!
This ride was so beautiful...
We decided to stop in Silverton and eat some lunch and ride the train. Dan remembered riding the "Silverton Train" when he was a little kid. We went and checked it out and found out that you have to start in Durango and ride round-trip. It would take an entire day and would cost about $400 for the cheap seats... and up to almost $800 for the nice ones. NO thank you.
Instead we went and had some lunch and bought a Christmas ornament (our tradition when traveling) and a few sweatshirts....
We found this great little Mexican restaurant... and found out that we had found ourselves in the middle of the "Harley 4-Corners Ride"... this town was PACKED with motorcycles. We had seen a lot coming over the mountain... but we had no idea why.
Wow.... impressive. Our waitress was very proud of our creativity....
Headed out of Silverton we had some wet weather... but it felt so good!!!!!! This road over from Ouray reminded us so much of one called "road to the sun" up at Glacier National Park....
This is now one of our very favorite places EVER. It is the Durango mountain resort. We should have stayed here for the night... but it was still early and we wanted to get to Durango to get a room.
After arriving in Durango and finding there was no room for us in any of the "inn's" Dan saw these bikes and had to get his picture with them. The nice people at the Hampton Inn (not the motel in this picture) called ahead to Cortez for us and found us a room at the Holiday Inn. While in their lobby the manager pointed out some pictures of MESA VERDE to us. He told us that we should definitely stop and check out the "cliff dwellings" on our way to Cortez....
Headed into the Mesa Verde park....
Looking out over Cortez... and the rain!
We had to get a little wet to see the sights... but none of us minded! The family fish especially!!!!
This place was unbelievable! I wish we had known and could have spent more time here. They have tours where you can climb down into the ruins. Kenna and I hadn't packed tennis/hiking shoes and I was wearing a skirt... and we got there late enough that the last tour was full. Darn.
This was a temple...
This is the biggest one... they called it the "palace".... would have loved to have gotten to go in there!!!
Our room was really nice and big...
And the kids LOVED there "Holiday Fort" with bunk beds and their own T.V. and video games...
Courtney loved being able to climb up and look over at us...
Another fun and spontaneous day for the Floyd's... time for a good nights sleep and a full day tomorrow!
1 comment:
love those places! A few years ago when I moved back in with mom and dad, I went with them and Greg and Angie and the boys down to Mesa Verde and thought that was cool to explore! We also stopped in Durango and rode the Silverton train up to Silverton. It was pretty fun.
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