Day 62 - Durango, Silverton, Ouray and the San Juan Skyway, CO

We left Mesa Verde in a rush, we hadn’t planned on England reaching the quarter finals and there was nowhere to watch it nearby. We headed to the town of Durango which was 30 minutes away, where we found a brewery bar serving breakfast with the football on TV! We caught the second half and celebrated the win with a Eggs Benedict (Lee's traditional and mine German style with sauerkraut, corned beef and cheese), French toast and cocktails! We couldn’t believe the number of people, mainly Americans, in the bar watching the football. It has definitely grown as a sport since we were last in America and the World Cup was on.

With our celebratory breakfast done, we went for a walk around Durango. We both really liked this town, it has a real sporty feel to it. In the winter it’s a hub for snow sports and in the summer, people come here for climbing, mountain biking and hiking. Although it is a small town, it has a lot of shops and a busy feel to it. The best part for me was that everywhere you looked, there was a mountain looking down at you. The whole town is surrounded by mountains. For Lee, he liked all the breweries. Colorado seemed to be really into brewing their own beer and are proud of it. Given a chance, Lee would have liked to have tried them all but we only had time for two. 

There had been a huge wild fire just outside Durango, we saw some of the burning on our way to Silverton and the smoke was visible from Mesa Verde but what really impressed me was how nearly every store in Durango had a thank you sign up for the fire fighters. There must have been a real risk of the fire reaching the town had it not been controlled in time. 

The other thing we noticed once in Colorado is that Marijuana was legal and there were a number of stores selling it. We've just come from a state where alcohol was barely legal into a state where you could now buy weed, these are the differences between states we were looking forward to seeing!  

When we were ready to leave Durango, we picked up the San Juan Skyway towards Silverton and Ouray. This is an amazing road, the best road we have been on during the road trip. It is know as one of the most spectacular highways in America and you can see why with breath taking views, hairpin bends and sheer drops off the edge with no barriers for protection. The road is also known as the 'Million Dollar Highway', possibly due to the amount of money it cost to cut the road out of the side of the mountains. The video will not do the drive justice but we tried to capture some of the essence.

We stopped off at Silverton, an old mining town which had a notorious red light district. When gold was found, lots of people and businesses flocked to Silverton including 23 saloons, gambling halls and ‘houses of ill-repute’. Most of these establishments were located on Blair street. Today, Blair street still has these buildings but they are craft shops, breweries and tourist traps. It was a really cool street to walk down, as was the parallel Main Street which also houses lots of bars, restaurants and shops in more upscale buildings.

The town is a ski hub in the winter with the Silverton Mountain Ski Area only a short drive away and in the summer, is full of people doing mountain biking and OHV (off highway vehicle) driving around the old mines. It wasn't until we left Silverton that we notices all the OHV's going around the mines, maybe if we had known before we left, we would have given it a go!

We also saw a steam train running between Durango and Silverton. We'd actually heard of this train previously as it was thought the wild fire in Durango could have been started by it, a claim which I think has now been retracted. The amazing countryside and the chance to ride in one of the original carriages makes this something we want to come back to do. 

Next stop was Ouray. I was driving today and the drive into Ouray was stunning but terrifying! I had to drive along the side of a mountain along a little road that looked like it hadn’t changed much (apart from some tarmac) since it was used by wagons! We didn't realise until writing this blog that the road is one of the most dangerous roads in America. The view into Ouray was stunning and it was worth it! Along the way, we stopped off to view the old mines that scattered the landscape. It was sad to see the amount of damage done by the mines, many of them searching for Gold but we were pleased to see that restoration activities are continuing to try to get the area back to its natural beauty. 

Ouray is know as Little Switzerland. Apart from being surrounded by mountains, there wasn’t much Swiss in this town. We stopped off for a drink in another brewery where we brought a couple of growlers for me to have at the campsite as I was driver today. We then started to walk along the high street when a storm came in and it started to rain really hard. We ran back to the car and got back on the road.

It was a shame about the weather as Ouray looked like an interesting town to check out. 

We really enjoyed the driving route and both agreed that this is an area we will be coming back to in the future, we just need to decide whether it’s in the summer for the train and off-roading or in the winter for the skiing!

Our stop for the night was at Black Canyon where we are camping for two nights.

NB: The driving scenes in the video are sped up, we did not drive this fast down one of the most dangerous roads in America. In fact, I drove so slowly, I had to pull over for trucks and RV's to overtake!