The Pitts Stop

Ridgeway

July 16, Sunday: Durango, CO to Ridgeway, CO

We left Durango by 10am and drove west through the small city of Cortez – right past Mesa Verde (some of the best preserved Indian cliff dwellings) that we had visited last year. We found the cheapest gas in Cortez at $3.02 – every place else was between $3.07 and $3.25. From Cortez, we headed north along the western half of the San Juan Skyway to Telluride on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains. We unhitched the car outside of town and drove around Telluride, but there wasn’t much there – a few older homes between the condos and a cute main street with pretty much the same shops and restaurants we’ve been seeing everywhere.

Back on the San Juan Skyway, we continued north over the Dallas Divide with fabulous views of 14,000’ peaks with red and purplish hues and down into Ridgeway to our campground at the state park. They had some sites right next to the reservoir, but those sites had electricity, but no water or sewer, so we decided to go to another state park campground a few miles up the road with the full hookups.

After settling in, we drove down to the scenic mountain town of Ouray to see the town and walk up to a pretty waterfall called Cascade Falls. We were going to stop at a larger waterfall called Box Canyon Falls, but a storm was brewing, so we decided to postpone it for a good-weather day. After exploring Ouray, we explored Ridgeway with its one paved road before returning to the RV.

July 17, Monday: Ridgeway, CO

Woke to cloudy skies, but decided to chance a drive down to Silverton on the scenic Million Dollar highway. (Yup, same Silverton as the train ride, but the train approached Silverton from the south and we were now approaching it from the north.) By the time we got on the road, the clouds cleared and we had a fabulous day for viewing the scenery that included massive red mountains, red streams, old mines perched on the mountainsides and wonderful views of Silverton and Ouray nestled in the valleys.

From Silverton, we decided to drive up the mountain to an old ghost town, but after five miles or so on a dirt road, we reached a streambed that was too rocky for our low-clearance, 2-wheel drive Honda, so had to turn back. Just turning around on the one-lane dirt road with steep drop-offs on each side was an adventure!

Back in Silverton, we had lunch in one of the cells at the Old Jail – a unique experience.

On our way back through Ouray, we stopped to tour an old mine, but the next tour wasn’t leaving for another hour, so we decided to skip it.

We returned to the RV to relax and clean up and then drove back to Ouray for dinner. Most of the restaurants were too fancy, too dumpy, or closed. We ended up eating on the patio of a decent-looking Mexican restaurant, but my food wasn’t very good. We returned home to the RV to try and watch some TV on our two channels with terrible reception.