The First Weekend

It’s been a day or two since I’ve written anything, so here goes.  

Dawn and I arrived Durango on Friday after traveling from Ogallala, Nebraska via Limon, Walsenberg, LaVeta Pass, Wolf Creek Pass and Pagosa Springs, and checked into the United Campground. After a restful night’s sleep we took the Durango trolley (URL) (actually a bus outfitted to appear trolley-like) to downtown to get on the train to Silverton. As expected, the train ride on the Durango and Silverton (URL) was wonderful. As usual on the train, you meet interesting people. We met a couple who is presently living in the San Diego area and was originally from New Jersey.

 We were a few minutes late into Silverton due to mechanical trouble on the train ahead of us (they had a car with a bad bearing, and they had to remove the car from the train), but we still had plenty of time to get lunch and look around town. We saw enough that we knew we would come back and look around more.

 The trip back to Durango was just as impressive as the trip up. There is plenty of scenery (link to 2 – 3 pics), and we arrived back in Durango just before sunset. We were back in our camper just after sunset, had supper, cleaned up and prepared for Sunday.  

We left our camper behind and spent Sunday driving to Silverton to see things along the way. We caught the trains running on the D&S Railroad where we could – which isn’t very many places as the railroad is the only transportation available along much of it’s route, and enjoyed the scenery over the two 10,000 foot mountain passes in the 45 miles between Durango and Silverton. We also took pictures of the three trains (three pics) that arrived and departed Silverton.

Once the trains departed, we headed up a County Road 110 to Gladstone, Colorado (map) and beyond. We ended up driving about 6 or 7 miles in 50 minutes up a paved road that became a good gravel road, that then turned into a one-lane shelf road with steep inclines. When we met a couple other vehicles at the junction of (County 10 and 11 – Topo Map link), We inquired about road conditions beyond and decided to turn around and head back the way we came. It was more beautiful coming back than it was heading up. The Aspen trees are at the peak of fall color, and with the sun behind them the leaves glowed! (Picture or two).

We stopped in Silverton for refreshments and a potty break, and headed back to our camper in Durango. We enjoyed seeing all three trains we saw in Silverton pass thru our campground, had supper and did some laundry and planned the next couple of days.

All for now!

Wednesday Evening / Thursday

We departed Wednesday evening around 6 pm, and drove all the way to Sioux City, IA where we arrived around 11 pm. Just as we were getting ready to depart Thursday morning, we found we had a $300 problem. The problem was the ham radio in our Envoy became submerged in water that leaked from a 5 gallon water container.  I had brought along some spare radio equipment, so it isn't really putting much of a damper on our trip, but it is maddening.

Once we cleaned up the water problem in the back of our Envoy, we strike a course for Randolph, NE to check the cemeteries for relatives. We found a bunch in both cemeteries, and would be happy to share them with any relative who is interested.  We arrived around 10:45 am, and left around 1 pm.

From Randolph, we drove thru to North Platte to see what is purported to be the largest railyard in the world. We have been there before, but we had heard about a new visitor center. It is very nice, and if you are in the area it is highly recommended.

Finally, we drove to Ogallala, NE to stay the night at the Open Corral Campground. They don't have w-fi, but I am able to pull in wi-fi from the Best Western across the highway. 8-)

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Introduction

We have decided to take a little vacation to Colorado. The only real destination is Durango, Colorado to visit the Durango and Silverton Railroad, who is running a couple special trains over the weekend. Last night we made it from the Twin Cities to Sioux City, IA. My laptop battery is running low, so this is it for this update.