CuRVWander

 Our Durango-Silverton train excursion was truncated to a Durango-Cascade Canyon excursion due to a lingering snowpack at the pass to Silverton.  But we had not come all this way to not see an old mountain mining town that had been on our list of things to do for decades.  Fortunately for us there is more than one way to get to Silverton.  It's called the Million Dollar Highway.   There are many explanations about how the highway got its name but two legends are currently the favorites.    One legend states that the road was built using a million dollars worth of gold and silver tailings, while another claims the nickname originates from an exhausted traveler who proclaimed: “I would not travel that road again for a million dollars!” Either way, the highway was completed in 1883 and the name quickly stuck. Our goal for the day, Silverton, CO. All covered in a fresh 3" blanket of snow from last night. The drive from our base camp in Ignacio through...

I started to write about the next adventure but in organizing the information I found myself mixing up what we did and when we did it.  Listing stuff wasn't working for me so I tried mapping it. The big picture.  Starting at Allatoona Lake, GA then moving base camp to Livingston, TX.  Lots of fun stuff while in Livingston, see below.  Then to KS for rig repair, then back to TX for our winter stay at Granger Lake, see below, and now we are almost all the way to our summer destination, Red Canyon Visitor Center, Dutch John, UT. You can click on any image to enlarge it. The Escapees RV Club headquarters in Livingston, TX made a great base camp for day tripping.  Our sightseeing and family visiting trips racked up a little over 1,000 miles. Once we moved to our winter volunteer position at Granger Lake, TX, the miles really started piling up.  We got in over 2,700 miles visiting family, friends and touristing.  Okay, it took several hours to create the map...

  Goodbye rustic, hello up-town!  We made the climb from Ft Sumner, NM to Ignacio, CO., a neighboring town of Durango.  It is early in the season for Durango and many of their services are not up and running yet, especially RV parks.  And the ones that are have nightly rates that made my eyes bug out.  We found a Casino resort in a very small town 17 miles to the southeast of Durango that also had an RV park.  With our Passport America and Good Sam discounts it got the rate down from excruciatingly painful to just painful.  And wouldn't you know it, instead of it being our usual two-night layover we were in for an extended stay of 11 days. But no more dirt and gravel for us, no sir.  It's asphalt roads, concrete pads, poured curbs, and a driveway to park your car in. There is no campground host or anybody that watches over the RV park that we can tell.  All administrative duties such as checking in, paying, etc. are done at the hotel registra...

  El Malpais, New Mexico The move from Ft. Sumner to Milan went really well.  Since leaving Granger Lake we have only been using secondary state highways and county roads, no major highways or interstates.  There have been a few miles of rough road that is long overdue for repaving but overall a very good driving experience.  The new truck is performing well.  It is fuel hungry though, not yet broke in at little more than 10,000 miles.  Between the wind and the ever increasing elevation, the mileage is running about 8.5mpg.  Cyndee's little SUV pulling the equally little cargo trailer is getting 20+mpg.  Of course we have been using her SUV to do all our grocery getting and sightseeing so it is racking up the miles out here in the wide open west. So, for this post I am forgoing a lot of narration and just posting a bunch of pictures.  We saw so many beautiful sites and there were so many pictures. El Malpais El Malpais National Monument Visit...