Silverton

We had an incredibly wonderful day in Silverton today!

The original Labor Day plan was to go up to Pagosa Springs for the whole weekend - we had a cabin with room for the dog and everything. Unfortunately Scott had to work Saturday and Sunday, so those plans were thrown out the window, but since he was off on Monday I knew we had to do something fun and memorable.

One of the things I had been looking forward to on the Pagosa Springs trip, was driving the "Million Dollar Highway," which stretches south of Ouray, down to Silverton. Since we hadn't had a chance to do this yet, and hadn't seen Silverton yet, I thought it would be a great day trip for us. And it most definitely was!

I had been debating whether we wanted to try and hike, but decided with it being the last day of the long weekend, and never seeing the town before, we'd just take it easy and try out some "touristy" things instead. We started the day around 8:30, stopped for some breakfast on our way out of town, and headed south. It's about an hour and a half drive, and my is it scenic. If we ever have family out here for longer than a day, I really do need to get them to some of these areas, they are gorgeous!

One surprise for me along the way, was that I got to see a little bit of Fall popping up here and there! It was amazing that while most of the Aspen's were still green, every so often there were patches of bright yellow trees, and even a few red ones (although these were much more rare)! So that was very exciting for me and I tried to take several pictures of them, although it was hard to find road pull outs in the exact same places as the changing trees - but I did my best, and managed to find a few.

The Million Dollar Highway was beautiful, although we were surprised that it wasn't quite as scary as we thought. There were definitely a few spots that you wouldn't want to be passing a giant RV, but overall nothing too terrible, and nothing worse than Trail Ridge Road in RMNP.

We made it into Silverton around 10:30 or so and stopped in the visitor's center to see what they recommended for just a half day visit. Of course, they said to walk around town (which we were already planning), and the lady working also told me that the Silverton-Durango train comes in at 12:00, if we wanted to see it. Scott didn't really care too much, but I thought it would be cool, so we walked around town shopping until the train came in, and I got several pictures of it. I would love to take the train down to Durango someday!

After that, we got some lunch, and then headed out to the "Old Hundred Mine" for a Mine Tour (this was another thing I thought would be fun, plus the Visitor Center recommended it as well). We got to wear big rain jackets and hard hats and ride into the mine for a short educational tour. I believe I did one or two mine tours back as a kid, so it was fun to do one again and actually learn a thing or two this time.

Following the mine tour, we ended our day with a quick stop overlooking the "Gold Mill" (another big tourist attraction - but no time this trip), and then into town for some ice cream before making our way back home. We did end up stopping at one more overlook, to check out the "Red Mountain Mining District," and in particular, the "Yankee Girl Mine" - which is one of the most photographed in the area.

Pictures...(again had trouble narrowing it down, so bear with me, there are a lot!)

Million Dollar Highway

Silverton

Old Hundred Mine

The Gold Mill

Yankee Girl Mine