Colorado Road Trip With Dad

We had a wonderful trip. It was such a special treat to get to spend this time with my Dad.  Definitely something I will always treasure.   Here is a little journal in pictures.  I have a lot of pictures.  It was difficult for me to thin them down and you may not believe it, but I did acutally thin them down considerably.  Hopefully you won't be overloaded by them and can enjoy the little scrapbook I made for my family.




If you ever get the chance to visit Colorado.... after you have visited us... you ought to take a visit to Durango and get on the Durango Silverton train.  You will love it.

You get on early in the morning.

And if you plan it right you get to sit with some wonderful company.

(But this guy's taken, you'll have to get your own).

We rode in this rail car.  It was called the "Prospector".

There were four to our table; Dad, Steve, myself, and the fourth seat was shared between a grandfather and his two grandsons.  They also had a two seater table farther down the car.

I loved the old looking decor.  Antiquey lights and oak paneling, were part of the old-time atmosphere.

The scenery was  beautiful.

Ranches....

... and little homesteads were part of the view.

When the train comes around a few of those turns, you can get a great picture of the front end of it.

The river is beautiful.  

If you look real close, you can see a small speck in the middle left of the picture.

This is a zip liner.  There is an amazing zip line tour that you can take if you don't mind heights.... I 'm not too good at heights, but it sure did look like fun.  I keep thinking maybe I could give it a try one day, before I get too old for such things..... and no I don't think I'm too old yet; do you?

Here she is coming to her landing.   We were able to watch it all from the train.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was filmed in this area, as well as many other westerns,  they used this railroad and these trains for their film.   We were able to see a few places where they filmed, and where "Butch and the Kid" jumped off the bridge... but I wasn't able to get into the right position to get a picture of it.

I did like this old water tank.  It takes a lot of water to run a steam engine like this.... 2 stops are made for water going up, and 1 going back.

Doesn't it make you want to go rafting?  It does me.

Every view was breathtaking.

Dad and Steve and I in Silverton.

Silverton has that lovely mixture
of old and new... more old than new; the new being the cars.



The train ride to Silverton was 3 and 1/2 hours long. When we got to Silverton, we meandered around, there are quite a few tourist shops and restaurants. We had lunch at the old hotel. We took a bus back... but you can take the train back if you want. It is an hour and a half less time to take the bus, so we did that, and got a different view going back.





I'm always drawn to the "old". I love the beautiful workmanship and romance of the things gone by.

This was a huge bar that had been brought here from France, after the Gold/Silver boom hit.

tin ceilings...

.....and old, lovely lights.

A beautiful era, when travel and adventure had a different look.  

When we got back to Durango, we had a nice nap a few games of backgammon (my Dad loves to play backgammon with Steve.... and every visit is not complete without at least 10 games a day.. haha)  then went out for  dinner  and celebrated Steve's Birthday. It was a lovely Italian place, where we could sit out on the street and watch the comings and goings; I enjoy doing that!

There is a  jewelry store in Durango.  You can see the date it was established.  We think they are our relatives.   My Dad is a Raymond (last name), and his father was born in Durango.  His family was in the jewelry business.  So there must be a connection don't you think?  We were able to talk to the owner, and had a very pleasant talk with him.  We understand that the Raymonds sold their part of the business in the 40's, so we were so sad to realize that we could not meet up with any of them; Perhaps it was naive to think we could.. but we were hoping.  We are curious to know more of our family history though, and I am thinking perhaps I will do a

little research on Ancestry.com and find out a more if I can. 

The Railroad museum in Durango;

It had more than railroad items to see.

These are dollhouses.

There were many miniatures to see.  All made by hand.

The drive home was beautiful as well.  We never did get to Mesa Verde...perhaps another trip.

We stopped in Pagosa Springs on the way back and had a wonderful Mexican food lunch on the river, looking right across at the hotsprings, and thinking how wonderful the water looked 

Thanks for sharing in our little vacation.