Keystone

Our Colorado Smith family was out of school for Columbus Day (or Indigenous Peoples Day) so we planned a long weekend with them.  In the past we have met them in Moab, but this year we decided to vacation in Keystone, Colorado.  In retrospect Moab might have been a better choice.  Keystone has elevation of over 9000 feet and it was COLD that weekend. We didn't do as much outdoors as we might have wanted, but we got lots of family time, which the whole point for me.

There was some serious board game time. I am not a board game enthusiast, but it was fun to watch 3 generations try to outsmart each other.

We had two indoor pool days, but I only took the camera for one. Calvin and Zach execute a nice synchronized dive.

Lucy takes a jump

Family hot tub time

We also took a short family hike.  I don't think we ever found the trail we were looking for, but this trail was fun.  Lucy is a serious hiker and loves to hike the dirt trails. Especially if she has to bash her way through the deep jungle grass. Of course at Lucy's height all grass is deep jungle grass.

Along the way we found a road cut with a shale layer containing fossils and took time for some serious fossil hunting.

I'm not sure that Lucy knew what was going on, but she was willing to dig right in.

I think Austin found the best fossil

Here are Zach and Austin showing off their finds

While we waited for Lucy to catch up I took an artistic picture that I named Smith boys on a log.

And finally a family picture.

What a great crew.  It was so fun to spend the weekend with them.

One last road trip day

We had one last day on the road but with the goal of reaching Superior within our grasp we didn't take many side trips.  We finally crossed the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass, elevation 11,312 feet. Fortunately the snow on the road had melted before we got there.

We stopped for lunch in Fairplay, Colorado elevation 9,953 ft. There were remarkably few food options in Fairplay, but the Brown Burro served a good lunch.  In case you are curious, Fairplay is the model for the town of South Park in the TV cartoon.  I've never seen the cartoon so I can't comment.

We reached Superior in the late afternoon and got a tour of Butch and Emily's beautiful new home (sorry no pictures of it) and then we all headed off to the park while Zach had soccer practice. Zach usually rides his bike and Calvin was in grandson heaven when he got to ride bikes with the boys.

The park is so close that the rest of us easily walked there. I like this unposed picture of Butch and Emily,

but I like the posed picture just as well.

and we can't forget Lucy

The next day Butch recruited Calvin to help with a trim project in his basement that needed to be finished before new carpet was installed.  They managed to complete the job before the boys got home from school and it looks great.

Once the boys were home we loaded up the cars and headed to Keystone for a fun weekend.

Ouray, Colorado

Th drive from Durango to Ouray followed a route that Calvin had ridden on a bike ride through Colorado several years ago.  We once again drove through spectacular mountain scenery.  There are three mountain passes between Durango and Ouray, each a little higher that the last.  The first is Coal Bank Pass at 10,640 feet.

The second pass was Molas Pass at 10,910 feet. It is reputed to have some of the freshest air in the world, but it was pretty cold air so we didn't stay long.

On the way to the next pass we stopped at a waterfall Calvin had seen on his bike ride. Another rider had flagged him down on the ride and said he had to see this waterfall. It was not as spectacular a waterfall late in the fall, but the canyon was gorgeous.

So we took our picture in front of it.

Then on to the last pass, Red Mountain pass at 11,008 feet.

This is one of the Red Mountains.  There are actually three named Red Mountain 1, 2 & 3.  Red Mountain 2 looked the reddest to me.

A bike ride that took all day was considerably shorter in the car, so we arrived in Ouray about lunch time.  We went to Box Canyon to have a picnic lunch and see the waterfall.  Pretty nice dining.

The Box Canyon Waterfall rushes down a cliff face, but it is mostly hidden by rock outcropping. So this is actually the stream as it exits the waterfall.

The highlight of Box Canyon was a short hike to the bridge across the stream. This shot looking up canyon from the bridge shows an interesting geologic feature. 

This is called the Box Canyon angular unconformity.  The vertical layers you see are Precambrian Rock. After a lot of twisting, folding and erosion about 1 billion years of earth history are now missing in the rock record and the Precambrian layers are topped by Devonian marine sandstone.

We were still to early to check into our hotel we hiked to another waterfall, Cascade Falls. It was interesting but not as interesting as my favorite subject.

We stayed at the Beaumont Hotel. This hotel built in 1886 was lovingly restored to its turn of the century glory and was a real treat. (I give the bath tub two thumbs up)

We had time in the evening to stroll around town and admire the beautiful location.

And the next morning we got the message "Winter is coming" on the same mountain.

Durango and Silverton Narrow Gage Railroad

We spent an entire day riding the Durango and Silverton Railroad.  The scenery and colors were fabulous even if the weather was a little on the chilly side.  We rode in a gondola car, which means it was open air, but it had the best views on the train, and as long as you were dressed warmly it wasn't too cold. 

The ride was three hours each direction with a two hour lunch break in Silverton.  I'm pretty sure that Silverton only exists now because the railroad dumps about 800 passengers a day in town for lunch. The train follows the path of the Animas River.

In one place called the high line the train tracks just barely hug the edge of the mountain.

All along the route fall was in full beauty. So I took a lot of pictures.

When we arrived in Silverton our only goal was to find somewhere warm for lunch.  We wandered into the Grand Imperial Hotel with several hundred other people and finally warmed up a bit.

After lunch we wandered around town and found a few spots of sunshine where we could warm up. There were a couple of really impressive buildings in town, but the town itself is only about three blocks long and two blocks wide.

Back on the train we were optimistic that it would be warmer on the way down the mountain, but it was still pretty cold.

The engine is puffing and ready to go.  When the engines are in use they keep them stoked constantly for a month at a time.

And one last classic shot as we leave Silverton.

Utah 95 Bicentennial highway

The scenic drive on Utah 12 was so spectacular we decided to continue our trip east on Utah 95 named the bicentennial highway because it was completed in 1976, which is a signific ant year in our lives too.

Utah 95 did not disappoint.  We started out through narrow red rock canyons that reminded me of the canyons we paddled through on the Green River. We crossed the Colorado and got a quick look at Lake Powell and then continued on to Natural Bridges National Monument for a little unplanned exploring.  There are three named arches here and they are huge.  

We walked part way down to the first arch.  The walk included this ladder which did not inspire confidence, but I managed it without falling off.

By the time we got to the second arch we just took a quick peak from the overlook because we realized we were way behind schedule and we wanted to get to Mesa Verde before it closed.  We drove through Calvin's new favorite restaurant. A & W, for lunch and drove straight to Mesa Verde.  We managed to get there in time to take that last cliff dwelling tour of the day to the Balcony House.  The tour info warns that there are ladders to climb and a tunnel to crawl through in this cliff house.

This ladder looked a little sturdier to me and there was a lot of peer pressure to climb the ladder and look happy about it.

Here I am looking happy to make it to the top with the knowledge that we didn't have to climb back down but exit crawling through a tunnel.

Here is Calvin looking cool because he doesn't mind climbing ladders.

The cliff dwellings aren't exactly cozy but you could survive up here. This is a view of the Palace dwelling from across the canyon.

Thoroughly impressed and wishing we had another couple of days to explore here we headed to Durango and arrived just as the sun set.