Colorado Trip September 2010 FINAL POST

Hello family, friends, and blog followers!

We've been home now for over a week, and we miss the mountains and the beautiful clear blue of the western sky already! We will be back. We've resumed our lives again...work, house and yard work. We did, however, bring some lasting things to remind us of our week on the Western Slope.

We received these carry on bags and coffee mugs on the Durango - Silverton Narrow Guage Railway. We had seats in the Cinco Animas car...the Presidential Car. Along with these complimentary items, we each also received a commemorative pin, a bottle of water, and a pastry mid morning. We also had a very nice young gal who was our hostess, and served up any kind of liquid libation you wished for. These added touches made our trip even more enjoyable. The totes came in very handy once we arrived in Silverton...in the rain.

This is a sand painting done by a local Navaho artist. It now hangs in our living room.

While at the Gateway Auto Museum, we purchased this beautiful book showcasing each one of the cars in the collection. Along with a history of each automobile, beautiful photographs of each one make you fall in love with them all over again!

Here are two more members of our pottery collection. The vase on the left is carved from Rocky Mountain Aspen. we purchased in at Rocky Mountain National Park. The black and white double pot in Navaho, and we collected it in the gift shop in Mesa Verde.

What vacation would be complete without the souvenir T-shirt? Here are some of the shirts we collected on our travels. Susan has plans to make a t-shirt quilt after a few more years of traveling and collecting.This is Susan's favorite shirt.

We of course also came home with quite a bit of paper ephemera, all of which will be incorporated into a scrapbook of our journey.

Susan's favorite: the serene beauty of Arches National Park

Denis' favorite: Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park.

Thank you to all who followed this blog. We hope you had as much fun reading it as we did writing it and choosing the pictures.

Plans are already being made for next year's vacation road trip. Until then,

Susan and Denis

Colorado Trip Day Ten 9-12-10

Greetings all blog followers!

We arrived home successfully Sunday night about 9:30 pm. Susan brought home a little extra something from Colorado...the flu and was sick for two days. After that, we have both been busy at our jobs and at home, trying to get caught up, on both chores and sleep!

Our selection of pictures from our last day out features the interesting stuff you see on and along the road, if you keep your eyes open and camera ready.

This carnival ride must have been en route to another festival. Susan tried to get her fellow travelers to stop in Ames to tour the SPAM museum, but alas, no go!

Iowa...the corn belt of America.

Here is a guy pulling a trailer with an old fire engine on it. Note the golf cart ahead of the engine.

Here's another guy pulling a trailer with two golf carts. Actually, we saw quite a few golf carts going down the road in Iowa. We came to the conclusion that perhaps there were golf cart races going on somewhere (why not, they race riding lawn mowers!). Anyway, if anyone can enlighten us with an answer to this mystery, please do. Or, could it just be an "Iowa" thing?

A very friendly face along the highway.

We passed a car carrier semi filled with ordinary cars, this one was extraordinary and definately caught our eye!

We don't know what to make of this...???

What every highway needs...its very own jet fighter!

The wide and shallow Platte River.

The skyline of Lincoln Nebraska. The state capitol is the tallest building.

Our final post is yet to come, stay tuned, and thanks for traveling with us!

Susan and Denis

Colorado Trip Day Nine 9-11-10

Greetings All,

Tonight we are writing to you from Grand Island, Nebraska, about half way home to Wisconsin. There is nothing too exciting to report, except miles and miles of scenery. Here is a sampling of what we saw:

Ski runs at Vail:

Colorado River in The Rockies:

Acres and acres of corn fields in western Nebraska.

Here is a picture of the waxing moon and the planet Venus as seen from our hotel.

We should be home late tomorrow night, so I won't post a blog. Please check back in a few days for our final thoughts on the trip.

See you all soon,

Susan and Denis

Colorado Trip Day Eight 9-10-10

Greetings family, friends, and blog followers.

Today we visited a national monument, a national park, and a cute little town inbetween.

We began our day at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. This park is a chasm with rock walls that are very sheer and very deep. It is the handiwork of the Gunnison River, and although it is a mere ribbon from above, you can hear it roaring on the rapids below. The "Painted Wall"

On our way to Gunnison, we passed through a cute little town named Delta. It has a very nice and vibrant downtown area, with various murals painted on the sides of some of the buildings. We stopped only long enough to take a few pictures, but this little town has captured our hearts and interest, and we will definately be back for a longer visit!

The Colorado National Monument lies just outside Grand Junction to the west. the Monument is a red rock canyon carved over millions of years of water and erosion. We toured the monument in the late afternoon, so shadows were beginning to get very long. Here you can see the shadow of the western canyon rim on these rocks.

Here is a shot of Independence Rock with the valley and Grand Junction in the background.

The Grand Valley. In the distance you can see the landmarks of Mt Garfield on the left and the Grand Mesa on the right.

Unfortunately, tomorrow we turn our car toward the east and head for home. More tomorrow night from the road...

Susan and Denis

Colorado Trip Day Seven 9-9-2010

Hello friends and family,

After another restful night in our beautiful room at the Strater in Durango, be bid farewell to the city and headed north toward Grand Junction by way of Silverton, Ouray, Unaweep Canyon, and Gateway. Just outside of Durango, the road begins to climb an amazing 5,000 feet and crests over not one, but two 11,000+ ft passes on its way to Silverton. The elevation at Silverton is 9300 ft. We climbed up and over one more 11,000 ft pass on our way north out of Silverton to Ouray (pronounced You-Ray). We stopped for a brief respite in Ouray at Box Canyon Falls, which is a waterfall in a canyon. We had lunch in an interesting little place in Naturita, and then began a one our trip through Unaweep Canyon, alongside the San Miguel River. Our destination was Gateway, which is about halfway from Naturita to Grand Junction. Gateway is a very very small settlement, and what puts it on the map is the Gateway Canyons complex. This complex has a restaurant, lodging, a small gift shop. The jewel of the complex is the Gateway Auto Museum. This museum houses the personal collection of classic and antique cars of John Hendricks, the owner of the Discovery Channel. Mr. Hendricks also has a home nearby the complex. Here are our pictures for today:

Along the San Juan Skyway (aka the Million Dollar Highway) from Durango to Silverton:

These were taken at Box Canyon Falls in Ouray. It is hard to see, but you might get a glimpse of the falls behind us in the next picture down.

This was taken along the San Miguel River in Unaweep Canyon between Naturita and Gateway.

The Hendricks collection at Gateway includes one very special car...a Harley Earl concept car, the 1954 Oldsmobile F-88. Mr. Hendricks purchased it at auction for 3.24 million dollars. It is a beautiful automobile and only this one was every produced.

All of the cars in the collection are in pristine restored condition. This is Denis' favorite, a sweet little red 1956 Ford Thunderbird.

We are now back in Grand Junction for the next two nights. Tomorrow we are off to see the Colorado National Monument and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

See you tomorrow!

Susan and Denis

Colorado Day Six 9-8-10

Hello from Durango!



After two strenuous days of walking and climbing rocks, we took it easy on our legs today and rode the Durango - Silverton Narrow Guage Railway. This train runs from Durango to Silverton, a 45.2 mile ride up into the San Juan Mountains. Elevation in Durango is 6100 feet compared to 9300 ft in Silverton. A one-way trip takes 3 1/2 hours. It was a cloudy and rainy day in the mountains today, perfect for an indoors activity, but not so perfect for mountaintop viewing. The train follows the Animas river for the entire trip, and passes by some very tall mountains, many 13ers and 14ers (for you non-Coloradans this means peaks over 13,000 and 14,000 ft.). Unfortunately, the tops of the peaks were obscured most of the time by clouds, but the river itself was very picturesque, with many areas of rapids. We were in the last car of the train, so we had an excellent view out the back of the track we were leaving behind. Once we arrived in Silverton, we ate lunch and did a little shopping. We opted for the bus ride back to Durango, and arrived back in town at about 3:30. The train arrived at 5:30. We wanted to have a little time to explore downtown Durango. Here is today's installment of pictures for your enjoyment:



Our train on the mountain Taking on water on the way up to Silverton

The Animas River

The DSNGR has been featured in many movies over the past 50 years. The most famous movie filmed with the train was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Remember the scene where our hero jumps from the rock ledge onto the top of the train? This is the spot. All the railroad scenes were filmed with this train.

Silverton, CO:

Many times we were "within" the clouds.

Our accomodations are wonderful here at the Strater Hotel. This is how our room looked when we checked in:

No two rooms are alike. Each room is appointed with antique walnut furniture. The Strater has the largest collection of antique walnut furniture in the United States.

The Strater Hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a beautiful place to stay.

Tomorrow we leave Durango and drive back up to Silverton, and continue north to Ouray, on to Gateway, then back to Grand Junction.

Susan & Denis