The Telluride Lodge

... 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.

Sorry I don't have more pics of the group, I was mesmerized by the scenery!

Maybe when I get together with them next I'll have some to add.

Hope all are well!

Durango – Ouray – Montrose –
Gunnison

By far mums favourite day on the road.
As we drove north through the San Juan National Forest we saw some of
the prettiest scenery ever. Huge mountais surrounded us as we drove
over narrow passes to be greeted by more beautiful scenes. We then
found Ouray (pronounced you-ray). It is a town named after Native
American (Indian) Chief Ouray who was a peacemaker. It is also the
site of ...

... goes into a pot and the person who bet on the car that wins gets half the pot. A couple of differences we noticed from other demolition derbies we've been to are that, 1. There was no beer garden!! A demo derby with no beer?! And 2. The crowds in Montana are ROWDY! (Of course the presence/absence of beer probably plays a role in the rowdiness of the crowd)
One last thing that happened at the demo derby that I thought was hysterical was ...

... 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.

... fine in the back- I can lay out straight, but he can't.  I guess it's not made for people that tall.  Neither of us slept very good that night, but I think poor Silas had it much worse than me.  In the morning we drove to the picnic area of the campground in town and made our oatmeal and coffee and got on the road as early as we could. 
   Oh- I almost forgot- I think we wrote about this in our other travel blog- there's a 'Free Box' in Telluride where people can leave ...

... bolt or come back the next day. We planned on coming back the next day, but didn’t make it. We chose to sleep in our car again as the ground was pretty muddy and we thought it might rain again. This time sleeping in the car was miserable. Neither one of us slept well at all. Darren ended up driving at 4:30am. We decided to head back to Firestone where Darren’s parents live.

Day 3: Durango to Silverton on the Narrow Guage Railway, (overnight in Cortez) We checked out of the grand old General Palmer at the crack of dawn, and caught a vintage steam locomotive in the rain to Silverton on the narrow guage railroad. The ride was great fun for all of us, and especially so for Keith, who is a real railway buff. We all had assigned seats in one of the covered ...

... 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.

... made my famous 'Macaroni Beef Saute' last night for dinner, which I had practiced before leaving to make sure I still remembered how to make it. Mom, you'll be happy to know that I've improved from when I used to make it in high school- it was edible this time! We ended the evening by laying in the bus and watching 'The Wonder Years'. Silas bought the entire series on DVD and brought it along on the trip for us to watch. I'd only seen a few episodes when I was growing up (we didn't ...