Ouray/Silverton/Durango/Million Dollar Highway

Our next day, we traveled through several small towns on our way to Durango for the night. They are all along a highway that's called the "Million Dollar Highway." Its a stretch of road that winds around and over several mountains. There are no guard rails for most of the way and the drop-offs down the side of the mountain are quite steep. Unfortunately, when we were going through it, there was pretty much a blizzard. The views were quite limited and it made the way down alot of fun on the slippery road. The highway starts out near Ouray, which is a neat little Victorian town:

We stopped in Ouray to do a little mountain hiking and got a nice family photo (I don't think Nolan is a big fan of the back-pack yet but we're trying):

This is part of the highway leaving out of Ouray. It was still raining at this point:

Then it turned to snow once we got up higher in elevation:

We made it to Silverton and it was still snowing. Silverton is a little mining town that is a touristy place now, because there is a train that runs from here to Durango. It's an old narrow gauge, coal fired train that has been in continuous operation since the 1880's. It used to carry the miners from Durango to Silverton, but now it carries passengers for a day trip. It winds in and out of the mountains alot like the highway. We didn't think Nolan would be up for the 3 hour one-way trip so we just watched it leave town and drove the highway. Nolan likes trains, so he thought it was pretty cool, even though the snow was really starting to come down hard:

The caboose end:


The snow sure wasn't slowing it down at all. You can see the coal car all filled up for the trip back behind the locomotive:

We stayed in Durango for the night at this restored, historic hotel in the downtown area. It had an old western style saloon where we ate dinner. Nolan liked the piano man playing some dinner tunes for everyone: