Well I got a little out of order on our blog.
I’ll now try and continue in order of our travel. See our 6/19/16 blog post on pictures getting
to Ignacio Colorado.
Wow what a neat ride to getting here to
Ignacio Colorado. We are staying at the Sky Ute Casino. Our intent was to stay
here for two days, but we ended up staying twelve days. This park is about ten miles
outside of the town of Durango. Part of the reason for our extended stay was
because of the Casino RV Park, I’ll get to that in our next blog.
We had been in the Durango area before for
just a day or two, this time we wanted to explore the area a little more. We had done the Durango Silverton train
ride, but this time we drove the road to Silverton. There were so many great
pull offs with great views. When we finally got to Silverton it was lunch time.
At least the temperatures were cooler. We looked for the Mustache Saloon rated
in the top five on Trip Adviser. What a neat place for lunch. Linda took way to many photos. The
food was very good. We got there just in time as a train pulled in shortly after we were seated. I guess a
lot of folks use Trip Adviser. After our bellies were full we walked around
town and had a lot more time to spend there then we had intended. We were
planning on going to Quray which had some major road construction along the way. You
see part of the road “fell off”. Here
much of the roads around Silverton and Quray are blasted out of the rock walls.
One section just fell off down into someplace. There was only one lane
open, but there were delays waiting for oncoming traffic to pass. At times the
delays were longer then we liked waiting while another section was being
blasted out of the side on the mountain and the road was cleared. I didn’t like the thought of being 1000’s of
feet on the edge of the road while that was happening. We knew we could get to
Quray when we were in the Montrose area and could drive over from there. So
after visiting every touristy store, we did walk some of the off the beaten
path roads. The trains aren’t in town long enough for the tourist to visit all
the out of the way places. It was nice not to be in a rush. This is so nice
when you are not in a rush to get to your next destination and you know you
have a place to sleep as long as you can get back to your RV. This is just one
of the many advantages to rving. But all you folks reading this and aren’t
Rver’s, don’t start now, as there are just too many of us now. Just kidding.
Anyone wanting advice on rving are always welcome to email us, and we would
only be too happy to share our experience.
The Durango Silverton train along the Animas River.
I believe this is a car that follows the train with water tanks in case the ash from the train should start a fire along the tracts, at least that's what we were told.
The town of Silverton, the train just about in the center of the photo
The town of Silverton, RV Park in the center of photo, the train bottom center
The Mayflower Mill, used for gold and silver mining
Beautiful view
Note the road is on the left and then curves all the way to the right side of the photo, note no guard rails
Alpine lakes/ponds
Growing between the cracks in the rocks
The dinning car on the train looks almost empty
The town with a RV Park, center right
The place we had lunch, just off the main street
Waiting for lunch
A giant moose burger
We needed desert for energy to walk around town
A great day for a ride
I believe this was the Grand Imperial hotel
Liked the sign, and the saloon
Train in town
Sign tells the story
Interesting
Bench made out of Harley parts
I bet we all know some people who belong to this society
Now that's a snow plow
Haviland day use area with a very nice campground on the way to Silverton, The San Juan National Forest
Don't want to run into one of theses guys
some mule deer