Lumiere Hotel Telluride

... return! There is another lake a little way above Ice Lake called Island Lake, and it looks just as cool. By the time we got off the trail and returned to Durango it was dark. We ate dinner at Carvers Brewery, walked around downtown a little bit, and then returned to our camp where we fell asleep immediately. The next morning we ran a couple errands in Durango and made our obligatory stop at Serious Texas BBQ before heading home.

... of hiking and sight seeing throughout the town, and ate and drank the way a group our size and age would be expected to.<br><br>Sorry I don't have more pics of the group, I was mesmerized by the scenery!<br><br>Maybe when I get together with them next I'll have some to add.<br><br>Hope all are well!

... was both very<br>interesting and sad. I loved seeing the Indian head dresses made of<br>feathers and playing in a Tipi (teepee). I also loved the cradle<br>boards that the babies were strapped to for travel on their mothers<br>back. They had beautiful bead work to determine if the baby was a boy<br>or girl. The boys had geometric shapes and the girls flowers and<br>such. I was sad to see how the early US government broke their<br>promise to the Indians 4 times in various ...

... was 16 almost 17, so I think I remember it pretty well. Melissa or Sarah, please back me up on this. I don't know how many other fairs you guys have been to, but the Douglas County is big for a county fair, isn't it? Please tell Silas!<br> Anyway, we walked through all the animal barns. My favorite is the pig barn and Silas likes the rabbits. (oops, was I not supposed to tell that?!) It didn't take us too long to go through all the barns and ...

... view of mountains in 3 directions. Ethan, Connie and Wade drove up to Yankee Boy Basin (4 wheel drive mountain pass) while Antoinette and Amanda relaxed at the hotel. Nice side trip. Would love to go back and check out some of the other mine sites and tunnels. More pics to come later.

... boat-swallowing hole in White's Rapid. We learned we could just stay way left in the rapid and miss it. We ended up going so far left we got stuck on some rocks. Better than the boat-swallowing hole, I say! Next time we know we can go straight down the middle and be fine.  I've never floated down a river with so much water. The waves were huge... but in a fun, non-threatening kind of way. They were so smooth we just rolled right over them. No drops, holes, or rocks to dodge ...

... showed us the tools they used to mine and basically the workday of a miner. The mine had been mined for silver, gold, copper, among other metals. The guide told us that it never really was a good mine as it didn&#8217;t have enough of the minerals to make money. Our guide had been a contractor and had worked in the mine briefly. <br><br>Silverton was a cute little mining town and we ...

... but the railway buffs and photographers in the group spent most of the 3 hour ride in the open sided car behind us. Jack spent the whole ride with Gil's video camera, sticking his head out of the window and shooting scenery till his eyes were watering from the smoke and cinders coming back from the engine. The scenery was fabulous, despite (or perhaps because of) the rain ...

... sports, slows to a crawl during the off-season, and other than a few walks down Main St. and stops for coffee, we hibernated at Box Canyon Lodge, soaking in their wooden, mineral springs hot tubs while mavelling at the view of the mountains and Box Canyon Falls, and utilizing their comprehensive movie library for in-room viewing.

... after traveling from frigid Montana, through the cold rain of Idaho and northern Utah. The van has absolutely no heat, so I experience the climate and weather I'm driving through on a whole nother level than most drivers do. I pressed on from Moab in the early afternoon. I drove on a beautiful but horrific road between Moab and the Colorado border with ungodly curves and inclines. I was never more proud of my van! About 50 miles or so from ...