1.5.2012 – 1.5.2012  16 °C

We woke this morning with a change of plan, instead of driving back thru south western Colorado and into Utah to Moab we decided to continue to drive north thru the Rockies to a little town called Ouray. Our change of plan was because we all really wanted to see the Rockies here in Colorado. Ouray is famous for its hot springs! (They get us every time.. mention hot springs and we go hunting!)

The drive thru the mountains is really picturesque, high snow capped mountains, fir trees, aspens.. I can understand the draw card for the Rockie mountains! Our first stop was to the Durango museum to get some more info on the early history of the town. Durango was created as a town by the Santa Fe Railway Company. The railway decided to move to the bottom of this valley as further up the valley miners were finding silver and they needed an easy way to get the silver to market (hence the purpose of the railway). When the railroad moved into an area immediately many people flocked to the location to live.. I guess modern conveniences, cheap land etc. The railroads also installed civic buildings for the town and services so it was worth while for people to move into a newly created railroad town.

I was delighted to hear that Durango had its own shoot out story! Apparently the sheriff and the marshal went at it after the sheriff accused the marshal of not upholding the new anti drinking and gambling laws. The outcome was that the marshal ended up killing the sheriff and when the case went to trial he was found not guilty because ‘he looked like a good guy’ and he was ‘brave in the face of danger’! J Don’t you just love 19^th century justice!!

After the amusing shoot out story we headed north for Silverton. Silverton is aptly named as it was a key silver producing area for many decades (although today there is no real mining still taking place). The silver was originally brought via mule from Silverton to Durango, but once the railroad was built the silver was sent down via the train line. Silverton is today a tourist town and still heavily relies on the Durango- Silverton railroad (although these days it is a steam engine that just brings up tourists every day). Unfortunately for us the train doesn’t run in the winter (and wouldn’t you know that the season starts in just a couple of days!!), which means that most of the businesses in town are still closed for the winter!! It is pretty amazing to wander around an old western style town that is bordered up and closed.. In fact, much of the town is looking like it has seen some better days.. maybe a business opportunity knocks in Silverton! We had lunch in one of two open cafes and had a chat to the owner. She explained that they get so much snow here in winter (the town is just under 10,000 ft) that often the roads are inaccessible so many of the towns occupants chose to live elsewhere in winter and come back in summer for tourist season. About the only thing that happens here in winter is some extreme back country skiing.. helicopters required!

We left Silverton late in the afternoon and headed to our final destination Ouray. I had chosen Ouray as our place to stop for the night for one reason only… hot springs!! We found one of the two hotels in town that have access to the hot spring water and booked a room… We scored an upgrade to a suite.. pretty happy.. before we all hit the hot tubs (there are six all at different temps). It is nice to sit in a hot tub after a long day and just check out the snow capped mountains.. Aah!

Song of the Day– John Denver, Rocky Mountain High