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Open window with today’s pictures.
May 31, 2003
Saturday
Start: Rancheros de Santa Fe, Santa Fe NM
End: Alpen Rose CG, Durango CO
Miles: 236
Hi Temp: 91.8
Lo Temp: 55.6
Cool this morning in Santa Fe. Underway early, headed up US84.
The scenery was great going up this way. We'd go over a ridge and see a new valley. We gradually got out of the dry country and into the mountains where it's still dry, but not a desert. The snowfall meltoff keeps the northern part of NM a little greener.
We intended to stop for a bit in Chama NM. It's a narrow-gage railroad town from the 1880's. There are two major narrow-gage steam engine train operations still in existance - this one in Chama, called the Cumbres & Toltec (Scenic) Railroad, and the one in Durango, called the Durango & Silverton.
The C&TSR is owned jointly by Colorado and New Mexico. Thus, it's operating on a shoestring of state funds. It has lots of old railroad equipment but no money to make the equipment usable again. A bunch of equipment is rotting on the tracks.
Chama is a nice place in a green valley. There is an economy here besides the tourist one, but the tourists do supply a lot of dollars. We *must* come back here.
Then we went on up US84 to Pagosa Springs. This place has expanded astronomically from that which I first saw in 1968. I think I recognized a few buildings downtown. There are resorts and casinos and time-share condos now, where in 68 there were a couple of bars and a restaurant.
Durango, when we reached it, proved as much a surprise. There are strings of buildings where none existed when I went through here in 1968 and when Dolores and I and Susan went through in 1971. The whole flavor of the place outside the downtown core is changed. Downtown is somewhat the same, just yuppyfied.
After we settled the trailer into its temporary home north of town, we had an early dinner/late lunch in the trailer. The chicken was good as was the Gray Ghost table white wine from Virginia.
We went to town, got diesel fuel, and went to church at St Columba's.
Then we went downtown to look around. We parked the truck and hiked Main Street. Then we decided to do the D&S train ride on Tuesday next, so we bought tickets while today's engine was shuffling cars around to set up tomorrow's operations.
We'll do a long drive around the area tomorrow (Sunday), do the train Tuesday, and use Monday for haircuts and other practical things.
Open window with today’s pictures.
June 01, 2003
Sunday
Start: Alpen Rose CG, Durango CO
End: Alpen Rose CG, Durango CO
Miles: 0 with trailer, 260 with truck
Hi Temp: 81
Lo Temp: 52.7
Today was our day to drive the San Juan Skyway, a collection of roads the entrepreneurs up here want everyone to drive (and patronize the businesses).
We went down the driveway, turned left, remembered it was time for the first narrow-gage train of the day, stopped and waited. Soon it came along on the track adjacent to the highway, so we took pictures.
We went on north on US550 to Silverton (elevation 9,318') over Coal Bank Pass, elevation 10,640' and Molas Pass, elevation 10,910'. Above 10,000' their is still snow on the ground in shaded places. It was cool up there and the mist or light rain that fell made it seem cooler.
We came down the mountain into Silverton until we were held up by an 18-wheeler carrying steel beams, which was going very slowly down the hill. He finally pulled over. We stopped at the visitor center and picked up some brochures. Then we cruised through the town and out 110 toward Animas Forks. We took a few pictures from there and came back to town when it looked as though it would require a 4x4 to continue. We looked around Silverton, including a drive up a scenic (?) gravel road to the miner's shrine above the town. Then we continued north on US550.
The first part of the segment to Ouray is uphill to Red Mountain Pass (elevation 11,018'). Then you wind slowly downhill for a long time. There are several switchbacks and 20mph curves. There are parts with no guardrails because there's no place to put them; the road goes to the edge. The canyons are steep and deep; if you go over, it's bye-bye.
Then you come around another pair of switchbacks and suddenly you're on the main street in Ouray. It's a small town that looks like it's living on tourism. We didn't stop, but continued north to Ridgeway. There's a railroad museum here that we should do someday, but we passed on it today.
We turned onto CO62 and headed to Telluride. On the way, we passed the foundations of a mill that produced uranium in WWII for the Manhattan Project. Telluride is a couple of miles up a box canyon. We stopped to walk the streets in the old shopping district and took some pictures. We had sandwiches in Patty's Bakery (great bread!). We went toward the end of the canyon to photograph the steep walls and Bridal Veil Falls. It's hard to imagine miners walking up those hills to their mines from town. Telluride is at 8,745'. Just walking a block quickly makes us breathless - we're just not used to that altitude. Telluride keeps up the look of the old mining town, but you can't buy a house there for less than half a million. It's surviving quite well on tourism, festivals, 4-wheeling, and the like.
After leaving Telluride (now on CO145), heading southish, we found the location of the Ophir Loop on the old railroad through here (Rio Grande Southern). We went up the Ophir road out of curiousity, but didn't see much. Ophir is at 9,600'.
Then we went onward over Lizard Head Pass (elevation 10,222') to Rico (not much there now) and then Dolores. There we found the old depot with a Galloping Goose in front of it. The Galloping Goose was the railroad's way to save money by combining an auto-body married to a small bus and the whole rig mounted on railroad wheels. It carried a few passengers, the mail, and some freight, at a cost much less than running a whole train.
We then went on to Cortez and then back to Durango without stopping. At Durango, we wandered around shopping for a bit then went to dinner at Ariano's (Italian). The food was good, so was the wine. We fell into conversation with a couple behind us who live winters in San Antonio, summers in Durango, and travel in between. Very interesting.
Then we went back to the campground. Just prior to the campground is a grass strip for airplanes and gliders. The strip had a dozen or so elk on it. The owner of the campground says that's not unusual - there are plenty of places they can go around the city to avoid being hunted. They're a nuisance to him because they get in and eat the newly-planted trees. The prior owner of the campground once found an elk on a picnic table so he could eat the higher leaves on a tree.
We got the email, composed these notes, and now we're going to bed. Chores day tomorrow.
20030602
June 02, 2003
Monday
Start: Alpen Rose CG, Durango CO
End: Alpen Rose CG, Durango CO
Miles: none
Hi Temp: not observed
Lo Temp: not observed
We got up in a leisurely fashion and ate breakfast in the trailer.
Then we went into town to get haircuts. I dropped Dolores and the truck at her place and walked down four blocks to a barbershop I'd found. I had just sat down in the chair when Dolores came in saying she couldn't get her hair cut there until much later. She asked the barber if he did women's hair.
He replied that he barbered here in the summers for his uncle, but the rest of the year teaches haircutting of both sexes in Boulder. That settled it. He started in on me.
While working on me, a young man came into the shop. He and the barber exchanged greetings and it came out that he was home on leave from Navy service. The barber finished with me (very good, by the way - did it all with scissors and much faster than one would think) and started on Dolores. I chatted with the sailor (he's a nuke (nuclear powerplant specialist)) on the carrier Abe Lincoln) for several minutes. The barber finished with Dolores, so I paid for our haircuts and then paid for the sailor's, too. He shook hands and said thanks, and we went on our way.
Then we went to the leather shop to have a new hand-strap for the pickup truck made for Dolores (we'd lost the one we had somehow). It's sort of a trolley-hanger strap that she uses to help herself in and out of the truck and to hang onto when she gets nervous. Jeremy said he'd have it done by 6 or 7. Then we went to Albertson's for groceries (nice store here) and returned to the trailer.
We took it easy for the afternoon. I did a couple of computer chores and read; Dolores read and napped.
I went after the strap at 6:00pm; Jeremy had done a good job and only charged $15. Not bad at all.
The dinner plan was for grilled steak and potatoes with salad and wines outside at the picnic table. But the wind came up and blew like mad. I grilled the steak outside with the little grill on the tailgate of the truck jammed up against the trailer; then we ate inside while the wind buffeted the trailer around. It began to rain as we ate but it didn't last long.
After dinner, I drilled out a screw hole in the truck to attach the strap using a pop-rivet. Darned if all my pop-rivets weren't too short. I'll have to get a longer one tomorrow.
Then we settled in for the evening.
Open new window with today’s pictures.
June 03, 2003
Tuesday
Start: Alpen Rose CG, Durango CO
End: Alpen Rose CG, Durango CO
Miles: none
Hi Temp: 90
Lo Temp: 46
The temps are from the last two days - forgot to read them and reset the thermometer last night.
Today was the day of the great train ride. We rode the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gage from Durango to Silverton and return. We ate, drove downtown and parked by the station. Boarding time for out 9:00am departure was 8:30am, and we were in place. We'd purchased a softcover book giving milepost-by-mile-post highlites so we'd know what to look for (our last trip on this line was with a very young Susan in 1971).
The train departed on time and chuffed through town and into the valley of the Animas River (in Spanish, "Rio de las Aniumas", or "River of Souls"), going upstream (north).
The day was clear and cool, just a beautiful day for this sort of thing. We opened the coach windows at our seat and let the breeze (and the coal smoke) blow through. The camera came out early, and we took a bunch of pictures (87). Not all of these made the cut this evening, however.
The railroad elected to follow the river when building this 45 mile line. However, the river descends at 7% in some places, so the railroad had to gain altitude early to meet the river at the proper point. Also, the valley gets very narrow and the walls are rock; the roadbed for a good part of this line had to be blasted out of the rock and is only as wide as the narrow-gage train required.
The place of highest photographic interest on this line is the so-called "high line". At a point where the blasted-out roadbed goes around a sharp curve with a straight-down slope below, it is 400' above the river. The engineer's speed limit on this section is 5mph, which only serves to really panic those who are already panicy about heights. One lady across the aisle from us stared straight ahead for this entire part of the ride.
A good part of the route up the river valley is isolated; the highways use a different up-and-over route because the valley is too narrow to take a highway. There are a few real campers in the San Juan Forest, hiking through it (Colorado has a hiking trail from Denver to Durango). They can flag down the train and get out that way if they want.
The book gives considerable background to the route, including the severe snowslides it suffers each winter. This isn't much of a problem now, because the route shuts down in the winter. In the days when the railroad supplied Silverton with all its supplies and took out all its silver ore, it was a hardship when the line was closed. There was some snow still visible in shaded places today.
There are two trains that run round-trip each day. We were on the second, 45 minutes behind the first. When we arrived in Silverton, the first train had already backed out of downtown onto a wye to turn around for the return trip. While we ate and shopped, our train also backed out and turned around.
We ate in the bar of the Grand Imperial Hotel, opened in 1885. It has a manificent back-bar and a piano player was banging away on an upright by the door. The sandwiches were good (with Durango Ale for me) and the music was great. Dolores found a pin and I found a gift for Bill that he'll like. Then we walked around the town until it was train time.
The return trip was nice in a different way. The day had warmed up some, and we'd eaten, so it was a struggle to stay awake. But the scenery helped us keep going.
The wildlife report is that I saw a ground squirrel and both of us saw a pair of eagles soaring around rather high. Maybe the train scared them way up into the air.
We pulled into the depot and detrained, then hopped into the truck to go to Home Depot searching for pop-rivets. Home Depot had only their standard bubble-packs, so I'll have to keep looking. I need one 3/16" dia x 1/2" grip, which is a little large.
We came back to eat at the Ore House. I had a good Chicken Sonora while Dolores did in a steak she pronounces as excellent. My chicken was also in that range. She took Chardonnay while I did a Zinfandel.
Then we waddled back to the truck and drove to the the little house in the campground to put this set of notes together and prepare for our move tomorrow to Moab. The weather-weasels say it's going to be hot over there, so we'll leave early.