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Today we are scheduled to go and ride the Narrow Gauge Railway from Silverton to Durango.
We have breakfast at the hotel and set off on a coach at 08:30. The coach will take us to Silverton, we will then ride the railway from Silverton to Durango and the coach will pick us up in Durango and take us to our hotel.
It is a warm sunny day when we set off. The first stop is at a small boom town from the Gold and Silver prospecting days called Ouray. It is known for its hot springs and is sometimes called "Little Switzerland". We stop for a coffee and we also visit an authentic Western Saloon.
We set off again and start to climb up through the mountains, there are some terrifying drops on the side of the roads. We stop at a gold mine on Red Mountain, where we see a Silver mine from the late 1800's called the "Yankee Girl". These prospectors must have been pretty hardy folk to work in these narrow mine shafts up in these inhospitable mountains (especially in winter)
We push on and arrive at Silverton at around 12:00. This is
another gold rush boom town, and little has change in the relative layout of the town since the 1800's. Our train for Durango is at 14:15 so we have a couple of hours to have a look around the place. The first priority is to get some lunch, the go to a place called "Shady Lady".Which is now a restaurant & griil, but in the past was the last brothel in Silverton which closed its professional doors in 1947 and had a number of infamous madams including Denver Kate and Jew Fanny. We have hot turkey sandwich with mashed potato, sweet corn and gravy. I have a pint of the local cider concoction called "Woodchuk" - Its pretty good. After lunch we wander round the various gift shops.
We turn up to board the train at 14:00. The coaches are more basic than we have been used to with Amtrak! The train rattles along and we follow a stream through rugged, rocky countryside. There are few photo opportunites apart from when we climb high and look down into the deep gulleys.
We arrive in Durango at 17:45. In the intervening time Bob the bus driver has taken our
luggage to the hotel. We go on a short tour of the town, and restaurants where we might go for dinner are pointed out. We arrive at our hotel , the Double Tree. And check-in is very speed and we get to our room. The weather has taken a turn for the worst and is cloudy, so we decide to eat in the hotel. We go to the hotel bar have a few Sauvignon Blancs and order food at the bar. We turn in early again another early start tomorrow!!
FOOTNOTES Talking above about Sauvignon Blanc. When I bought the bottle of Colarado wine in Grand Junction it had a pronunciation aid on the bottle label = SAW VIN YON BLONC
The "Fishing Hawk" that I spotted in the Rockies on the 14th May turned out to be an Osprey (Which was my fish assumption) I have amended my Blog
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