In part 3 of our Colorado Vacation Adventure, we headed over the Red Mountain Pass on the Million Dollar Highway into Silverton and eventually into Durango, where we would spend the evening with Alicia’s sister and her husband, Shirena and Clay.

First of all, I must apologize for taking NO pictures of our drive over the mountain passes. My wife always makes fun of me for taking photographs of scenery with no one in them, so the thought never occurred to me to snap some photos of the drive. But here are someone else’s pictures for your enjoyment!

They are in the process of repaving the roads on the passes, and we kept getting behind semis. So the lack of speed forced us to really enjoy the scenery. If you’ve never driven this road before, it’s an experience that you must do at some point in your life. You need a steady handed driver though; one who won’t be distracted from the scenery. One bad move on this road with no guard rails, and you’ll be tumbling down several hundred feet into river below!

We stopped in Silverton for breakfast at the Cow Palace Cafe. While Silverton is every bit as small a town as Ouray, the valley it resides in is much wider. It’s a funny looking small town. Again, no photos from us, so here is someone else’s from up high looking down into the town. About the only pictures we got of Silverton were inside the Cow Palace, as my daughter Olivia was playing with the camera as I was talking to Grandpa Kennon on the phone.

After breakfast and a quick walk through town (it was slow that morning, as the first Narrow Gauge train had not arrived), we headed on to Durango. We got to Shirena’s house and had lunch (fish tacos!). Later that night we took the girls to the rodeo. They had a great time. Let just say that I was excited for it to end.

The next day was the day of Shirena’s shower at their mom’s house in Farmington, NM. They headed on down, and I met Greg at Carver’s for lunch, and then we went river rafting down the Animas River. It was classified as Class 3 rapids, but I believe there were only two, both lasting no more than 10-20 feet. The rest of the ride was a leisurely tour of Durango from the river. Oh yeah, the most fun part of the trip was when the guide got the boat parked on a rock! It took him and one other guy out of the boat, and the rest of the six of us piled on top of each other on the back bouncing up and down to free up the raft.

After that Greg and I headed into Farmington, where 9 people would stay over at Pruda’s house. The next day was the drive to Taos, NM, and the kick off of the family reunion.

As we rolled into Grand Junction, we stopped first in Palisade, CO at Canyon Wind Cellars for some wine tasting, and bought some of their 47-Ten and Rose.

We then headed into a HOT HOT HOT Grand Junction (94 degrees when we arrived!) to stay with Alicia’s Grandma Lugy for the night. Lugy is 87 years old, and one of her daughters, aunt Alice, lives with her. Alicia used to own a restaurant in Flagstaff, AZ, called Jalapeño Lou’s. It was named after my Father-in-law, who died in Pure in a plane crash in 1996.

Alice makes some of the best new Mexican cuisine around! We had a great visit, and the most awesome feast both for dinner that night, and breakfast the next morning. The dinner menu was:

• Red Chile Enchiladas
• Flautas
• Taquitos
• Rice & Beans
• Sopapillas

And for breakfast:

• Green Chile
• Fried Eggs
• Bacon
• Tortillas

Everything was made from scratch, even the sopapillas and rottillas were hand made. The green chile was some of the hottest I’ve had. My wife imports her chile from new Mexico, but her dishes are still not quite as hot as the chile we had at breakfast.

After a great visit, we headed south out of town, where it prompted cooled down past Montrose. We stopped in the town of Ridgeway, CO for lunch, at a restaurant called True Grit, a restaurant that serves “cowboy cuisine” and has John Wayne memorabilia everywhere. We sat on the balcony and had a great view of the San Juans.

After lunch, we headed into Ouray Colorado, and checked into the Ouray Chalet Inn. If you’ve never been to Ouray, it’s one of the great mountain towns. The entire town is at best a half-mile long and five city blocks wide. There’s very little, if any, commercial or “chain” businesses there.

We took a hike up to Cascade Falls with the girls, and they had a blast getting into the mist of the fall, although Kenna didn’t like the noise too much. After throwing rocks into the creek that comes down off the fall, we headed to the hot spring pool. It was already 6pm, and yet the warm water felt great with the cool mountain air.

There were two water slides, and I tried to get Olivia to go on the slide with me, but she wouldn’t. Kenna said she wanted to go, so I took her, and she thought it was fun! She even held her breathe and went under water. Having seen her sister do it, then Olivia got brave and went as well.

After the hot spring, we had dinner, then put the girls to bed. Alicia and I then sat outside and stared at the star while drinking our Canyon Wind wine.

The next morning we would head over the Red Mountain Pass on the Million Dollar Highway into Silverton and eventually into Durango, where we would spend the evening with Alicia’s sister and her husband, Shirena and Clay.

Our Family vacation to Colorado and New Mexico was an awesome trip!

Everything went fairly well in terms of travel. We did have a problem with getting the rental car in Denver, and, anyone who’s been to Denver airport can appreciate this. We had to take a 15 minute shuttle ride to even get to the car rental “town.” Once we got there, it was mass chaos. I was about 8 deep in line, and it took over an hour.

Not anticipating that into our schedule, we just barely made it to the Alpine Inn in Frisco before they closed the front desk at 10:00pm. Beyond that, the trip went very smooth.

The next day was a beautiful, sunny, cool crisp day at 9000 feet. We stopped in at the Butterhorn Bakery & Cafe in downtown Frisco for breakfast. Girls ate well, and had fun at the same time.

That Sunday morning was a breast cancer walk, so the town was jam packed with walkers. The walk was down the walk/bike path that goes to Breckenridge from Frisco.

After breakfast, we drove the 10 minute drive to Breckenridge to check out the town. We were very surprised by all of the damage done by the beetles. There were more dead brown trees on the mountains than green ones. I saw in the local newspaper where Breckenridge had conceded defeat in the battle against the beetles.

In Breckenridge, there wasn’t a whole lot going on, as it was 9am on Sunday morning. But there was an art fair that was in the process of getting setup. We looked around at a few things, but the girls mostly wanted to play at the small playground in the middle of town.

It was a dangerous area though, an “iver” ran down through the town and the rapids were fast and “trong,” so I had to protect my girls.

After snapping a few family photos

We headed back north toward Frisco, but veered off to the east up a mountain to Sapphire Point, and easy family-rated trail that looks over Dillon Reservoir.

After our hike, we headed out on our 3 hour drive to Grand Junction. Coming down through the canyon just east of Glenwood Springs, we saw some rafters having a good time, so at the bottom of the canyon we stopped at the rest stop / camp ground to watch them go by.

Kenna took a few minutes to read up on the bears that inhabit the area.

On the way into Grand Junction we stopped at Canyon Wind Winery and did some tasting, brought a couple bottles, and then arrived at Grandma Lugy’s house around 3:00pm. It was hot in Grand Junction, about 93 degrees!

That concluded Part 1 of our trip. Part two is our visit with Lugy and drive into Ouray Colorado. Look for that post in the next couple days.