Day 21-22 ~ Cortez, Colorado

Yesterday we left at 6:15 a.m. and took four vans to Durango, Colorado, where we caught the historic narrow gauge train to the mountain town of Silverton, one of the highest towns in the United States, at 9,305 feet. The town of Durango was organized in 1881 by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad to service the local mining district. The Durango train station is located in the charming Old Town area.

We took the 3 1/2 hour train ride on a train powered by a charcoal fueled steam engine. The train just celebrated its 130th anniversary.

The scenery was a welcome change from all of the red rock we have seen for the past 3 weeks. I felt right at home as we traveled into the San Juan Mountains which reminded me of the Sierras in California. There were areas that looked a lot like Yosemite. The colors are changing and we saw the beautiful yellows and golds of the Aspen trees.

At times the steam from the train formed beautiful rainbows.

The trip followed the Animas River.

Today the vans picked us up after 8 a.m. and we headed to Mesa Verde National Park. The park entrance is only 1 mile from our RV park but we then had to travel 15 miles up a steep road to reach the visitors center. As we approached our driver mentioned that the Department of Transportation was there for commercial vehicle inspections and said they were also there yesterday. He assured us all was in order with his vehicle. Our group went to the visitor's center and before long we were made aware there would be a short delay while the vans were inspected. Three hours later, one of the drivers had been arrested for failure to pay a ticket for a fishing license violation and two of the vans were detained because they did not have the proper paperwork. We were stranded. As we were eating our box lunches, we stopped a bus driver who said he had an empty bus for two hours and agreed to take us back to the RV park. A large bus has been arranged for tomorrow and we will try our park tour again.