Let me say again how much I just love the Strater Hotel (more pics added to yesterday's post). which, apparently, has been in continuous operation since it opened without losing its Victorian charm.
Madison just loved the tiny drive-in theater on one of the model trains that was playing The Searchers. She just loves imitating Jeffrey Hunter after having seen the same clip a hundred times on The Great Movie Ride ("Oh, no you don't, Ethan! No you don't!"). Ironically, despite my love of TCM, we still haven't seen the movie.
This is probably because rest of Durango is much the same. Most of the shop exteriors look like they did 100 years ago. We enjoyed a walk around town (which is only a few blocks) and popped into a couple of shops, particularly the candy store. Madison was just like a kid in there.
But the best part of all was the Railroad Museum. You start out at the Depot, which also looks like you've stepped back in time.
From there, you head out back and down the tracks. The railroad in Durango is narrow gauge (only about four feet between the tracks, as opposed to the standard nearly six). The smaller trains are better for mountain passage and made this line much cheaper, and faster, to build back in the day.
The museum is like a mini wonderland of cool stuff from days gone by. There's antique cars from the 1930s, a replica of the first airplane to fly in Durango (like the Wright flyer with wheels), two locomotives, two passenger train cars, a caboose, two large model railroads, a huge collection of miniature soldiers, guns from WWII, and so much more it would take me all day to describe it.
We could have easily spent all day in there. Well, at least I could. Everywhere you turned there was something cool. I'm already making plans to go back.
They also offer tours of the rail yard and an all day excursion to nearby Silverton and back. As much as we would have loved that and had some extra time, we didn't have that much time.
We decided to check out the Royal Gorge Bridge, which is near our destination of Pueblo (famous for free government information). The bridge is the tallest in the United States and until 2001, was the tallest bridge in the world.
We headed off into the San Juan Mountains, where we crossed the San Juan River for about the sixth time in the last two days. The landscape got much greener, which was a welcome sight. Another long stretch without cell service, too. It's amazing how much of the West we've been through without cell coverage since Montana. And on major highways to boot. We've often worried what would happen if we broke down.
The higher we went, though, the cooler it got. Durango was around 89 degrees, but it got all the way down to around 55 in the mountains. We thought for a moment that we even saw some snowflakes.
It started raining again on the way back down, which was fine by us since we were past the steep inclines and sharp curves, and weren't planning to get out of the car for a while.
From there it was back into farm and ranch country. There was one ranch after another, followed by a series of farms that all had circular fields instead of the square ones that we're used to seeing, which works much better for the rotating irrigation systems. I was also interested to see that Colorado also favors the rectangular hay bales, arranged in large, rectangular stacks. In addition to the horses on the ranches, we saw a lot of cows and even a few llamas.
The green soon gave way to a red, rocky landscape. Very much like Red Rocks near Denver.
We eventually made it back into green mountains as we reached Royal Gorge. In addition to the bridge, which also has a walking path, there's an incline railway, an aerial tramway, and even a little theme park to go with all of the other local attractions built around the bridge.
You can imagine our shock when we reached the entrance and saw a big sign that said "Bridge Closed."
Thoroughly confused, we ventured on and headed into the park. On our way up, we saw more signs that said the bridge was closed. As we rounded one of the many turns uphill, we found the answer.
Just a month earlier, there had been a huge fire (cause unknown) that burned down much of the surrounding forest and every one of the park buildings.
The bridge itself suffered only minimal damage, but is currently closed for an indefinite period of time. The whole area was a rather jarring site, as you can imagine. The road to the picnic area was still open, which offers the only view of the bridge from a distance.
We looked into going to a local drive-in theater in Pueblo to see The Lone Ranger (keeping with the Western theme), but Madison wasn't feeling well. So, we called it an early night and relaxed at the hotel. Watching Harry Potter (Azkaban) on TV and eating take-out from Cracker Barrel, complete with crayons -- still a great evening together.
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