Roadtrip day 6

June 29

Packing for this trip was so tricky...we had to plan for hiking in the dessert and playing in the mountains...potentially cold and windy.

We got up very early and started our drive to Silverton. It was breathtaking! I saw so many lots for sale and was romantically thinking that we should buy one and build a dream house there. Then I heard that they get so much snow in the winter that they literally can be snowed in for weeks....and that it rarely gets above 70....and there is really nothing there but tourism, so dreams ended - ha!

We got there in plenty of time to meet our tour guide. He was going to take us on a tour of old mining towns. After the time to leave had come and gone we got a bit nervous. I called the tour company and they were running pretty behind. It actually turned out to be great because the boys got to "mine" for rocks in a cute shop that had a bag of sand that you sifted to find gems. Zach still plays with his months later. We walked up and down the street and looked at all the cute shops.

Finally our tour guy arrived and we loaded into the jeep. It was overcast and pretty chilly! Thank goodness for jackets!

Pay no attention to the scowl of Ms. Kenna - she was mad she had to sit on a wet seat.

The tour ended up being more about the landscape and waterfalls, less about old mining towns. We did get a lot of history of the area including learning about how mines used to operate. The poor workers would have to grab ahold of a wire and ride a mile up the mountain while holding on to the rope....crazy! Such a dangerous time!

The highlight of my day was a HUGE waterfall! It was freezing at it was snow just a few minutes earlier..just breathtaking! We stopped and walked around for quite a while....

Last stop was a old mining area that we could walk through, again I was scared to death that the kids would fall into the raging river or slip and fall into a pile of rocks - happy to report that everyone made it home safely! Thank goodness we brought our jackets because it started sprinkling. We did some fun offroading on the way back, and put the canvas canopy up.

Back in Silverton we watched the train come in, had lunch and ice cream and then headed back to Durango to put daddy on his plane home.