Travelling Diaries
2011 USA Coast to Coast trip / Day 13 Durango
Previous and next: Day 12 Grand Junction / Day 14 Flagstaff
3rd July 2011
Hip hip Ouray
Today was Day 13 of our tour and was one for the railway enthusiast. We were to travel to Silverton, Colorado to pick up a steam train on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.
The morning started for us at the more respectable time of 6am (!). As discussed yesterday, Grand Junction was a strange place; very hot and sleepy. We had been warned that the hotel might not be up to the standards of the hotels to date, but Karen and I found it perfectly respectable. In fact, in our eyes it was a good 3 to 4 star. The only strange thing about it was that when it came to anything to do with food and drink, everything was disposable, pre-packaged or processed.
To start with, the coffee cups in the room were paper cups. Normally this would have not worried us. However, last night we had been out and bought ourselves a bottle of wine to enjoy at our leisure in our hotel room (whilst writing this blog) and the only thing we could drink it out of was these disposable paper cups. Now, if this had been a bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild then maybe the paper cups might have distracted our taste buds away from the distinctive flavours of the wine (somehow I doubt it). As it happens it was a cheap bottle of Californian Merlot and the paper cups were just perfect.
There is a lot of snobbery (as you know) about wine. In the 2004 Oscar winning film, Sideways, the character Miles Raymond, a failed and depressed writer, is taking his friend Jack on a road trip through California’s wine country. Miles is a bit of a snob when it comes to wine and he puts down Merlot throughout the film. At one point he says “if anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving.” Apparently the sales of Merlot dropped like a stone after this film came out. In fact, we know people to this day who won’t drink the stuff (not necessarily because of the film, but because of the grape’s alleged reputation). Well, Karen and I saw this film and it had the opposite affect on us. We decided to experiment and drink different Merlots from around the world and have enjoyed them immensely.
Wine tasting probably says more about the person, their desires and their circumstances than it does about the wine itself. I remember my Dad used to make ‘wine’ at home (I’m talking back in the late 70s, early 80s). His stuff was made from grape concentrates he would buy in specialist shops, or sometimes he would make it from fruit such as elderberries. Now back in those days none of us had very ‘sophisticated’ wine palettes, especially as the type of wines available to us in the shops was often pretty limited (who can ever forget Blue Nun and Mateus Rosé?). We used to drink my Dad’s ’wine’ and enjoyed it; not so much because of the taste or character, but because my Dad had made it. The circumstances far outweighed everything else.
Back to Grand Junction and our bottle of cheap Californian Merlot drunk out of paper cups. The circumstances made this perfectly acceptable (not that it would have stopped us anyway). However, in terms of disposable, pre-packaged or processed items, the hotel excelled itself at breakfast.
When we went down for breakfast (which was inclusive in the package) we found that everything was throw-away. The plates and cups were paper. The cutlery was plastic. The juices (apple, orange etc.) came from a machine that had pre-packaged juice content. Even the omelettes were uniform and had obviously been bought pre-processed. What was strange was that when I went to eat the omelette I heard a little voice saying “My, you’re looking good today”. I thought I was hearing things and then I realised that the breakfast was complimentary. No wonder everything tasted just great.
The journey to Silverton was by Coach. We had a new coach driver for this journey. He had obviously been on the health and safety course as he started out by pointing out the ‘safety features of this coach’. There were two exits through the windows and one at the front (through the door). He then told us to ignore his instructions and always use the front door!
(where is the front door, again?)
He then pointed out that the journey was going to be over some pretty hairy hairpin roads and that anyone who was afraid of heights should move away from the right hand side of the bus (the side that we were on). Karen, who is a great lover (not) of heights immediately swapped places with me.
As we set off I was following the journey on my GPS (Sat Nav) system on my smart phone (the one I talked about on day 2). This also told me the altitude we were at. We started out at a height of around 6,000 feet above sea level, but started to rise rapidly. By the height of the trip we had reached over 10,300 feet above sea level.
The journey moved from the almost sterile Mesas (mesa is Spanish and means table-top) to more fertile land.
Our first quick stop was just on the main road to allow people to take photos of the Rockies. However, the anoraks amongst us spotted that there were a few old railroad vehicles parked nearby, so we quickly snapped those as well (now please note that, although I took these photos as well, I could not really call myself an anorak. More of a late spring cardigan).
Our first real stop was at a place called Ouray. As it was Sunday and early, many places were shut. However Karen and I found a great little coffee shop that served the best coffee we had had so far.
The bus then climbed up from Ouray into the San Juan Mountains. This is where the journey got a little hairy and Karen looked the other way.
We finally arrived at Silverton. This is a place that obviously thrives and survives purely on tourism. The streets look like an old western movie set. Here is the inside of the saloon bar where we had lunch. There was a honky tonk piano playing and the craic was mighty!
(That Buffalo must have been coming at some speed...)
Way back in 1880s the town had two sides; the respectable side and a bawdry red light district. We had a quick meal in the respectable side, and looked at the shops on the other side. That is were we picked up the train.
While we were there the heavens opened and the temperature dropped. However it soon warmed up again.
The train was an old fashioned steam train and was to take us on a three and a half hour journey to Durango.
(oh look, it's stopped raining).
The railroad followed the Animas river which was running very fast. There were some people rafting and canoeing on it.
The train winds its way through magical canyons and the remote wilderness of the San Juan National Forest.
What the tour manager forgot to tell us was that the train, being a steam train was actually covered in soot. This meant that your hands (and other parts) were black by the time you finished the trip.
After a great journey we arrived in Durango, another one horse town, and settled into our hotel for the night. Tomorrow was our journey to Flagstaff and our gateway to the Grand Canyon.
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