On Saturday, June 28 we decided to drive the San Juan
Sky way. This is a 36-mile Loop through the mountains. It was a glorious day! Bright blue sky and warm weather. We put the top down on the car and enjoyed the ride.
We left Durango and headed west to Mancos, then over to Dolores, around to Stoner and Rico until we came to Telluride. Just to the south
of Telluride is the new development of Mountain Village. This development looks very much like Deer Valley in Utah. Lots of new condos, spas, hotels and restaurants. Mountain Village is 9,500 feet above sea level and overlooks some of Colorado's most magnificent peaks. Mountain Village is connected to Telluride by a gondola ride that takes about 15 minutes over the mountains and is free to all. Telluride is a National Historic Landmark District with Victorian-era architecture. Telluride rests at 8,750 feet at the base of the Telluride ski resort and is surrounded by peaks that rise up to 14,000 feet. The town is about 10 blocks long and five blocks wide. It reminded me a great deal of Park City, Utah.
During Tellurides Mining heyday the town's fortune and notoriety attracted all sorts. Robert Leroy Parker, Tom McCarthy and Matt Warner were particularly intent on cashing in on the town's growing prosperity when on June 24, 1889, the gang "withdrew" close to $24,000 from the San Miguel Valley Bank. The robbery was the first of many lead by Parker, who later became famous as Butch Cassidy. Contrary to popular film legend, the Sundance Kid didn't participate in this heist.We continued our drive around the loop to Sawpit, Placerville, Ridgeway and on to Ouray. Ouray has hot springs and vapor caves. There is a 50x150-foot public pool that contains just under a million gallons of hot-springs water. Three different soaking sections vary in temperature from 60 to 106 degrees. As we did not have our swim suites we settled for lunch in the Irish Pub. From Ouray we continued on our drive on to Silverton. We had been there before as we had taken the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad up the mountains earlier during our stay here in Durango. I did discover that these trains once carried over $300 million is gold and silver ore from Silverton to Durango.
It was another fantastic day on our summer tour. John is talking about renting a jeep and doing some of the "real" mountain driving....we shall see... stay tuned.
That is all for now... hope all is well with everyone and that you are enjoying your summer.
Love,
Candy and Johnny
