It was amazing being out in Colorado so early in the summer, since so many of the mountains were snow covered, my favorite!

Previous recaps:

Oklahoma! Not just an amazing musical.

So many cliff dwellings…they must have seen them on Instagram or something.

We left off on Day 7, where we had just finished hiking at Mesa Verde and were heading away. We stopped by downtown Durango first to get lunch. We tried the Durango Diner, and I ordered an omelet with chile relleno, which was delicious and came with really excellent hash browns. It was one of those “sit at the counter” places, and nearly everybody there seemed to know the people working, a real locals place. We wandered around Durango a little more–it was a very cute little town, but nothing that really stuck out for us to want to do.

We had a very annoying time trying to get gas–we assumed it would easy to do since it is a tourist town, but we were wrong. A few out of service gas stations and a lot of annoyingly difficult left turns and we were finally on the way to the “Million Dollar Highway”.

It was a gorgeous drive up to Silverton, which is technically where the “Million Dollar” portion starts, but it was pretty before that! We stopped for a quick cup of coffee in Silverton and stretched our legs a bit too. I’d noticed that if I sat for too long in the car my knee hurt a lot more, so I always welcomed the opportunity to get out of the car. This could also just be a sign of aging, I suppose.

We left Silverton and continued the gorgeous drive. I kept trying to take pictures out the car windows, but honestly, they never look very good, nor do they capture the beauty…it was an amazing and awe-inspiring drive, and I’m so glad I had Louie to drive it!

Anyway, we checked into our hotel in mid to late afternoon. I’d booked two nights at the Matterhorn Inn. We cleaned up and then went out to look around and figure out dinner. We weren’t super hungry after our diner lunch, so we ended up deciding to eat at a nice restaurant called Brickhouse 737 but only order appetizers. It was phenomenal, one of the best meals of our trip. We got foods with morel mushroom and spring peas and everything was fresh and delicious. I didn’t write down what we ate and much of it was off the special’s list, but I highly recommend the restaurant if you want a nice meal in Ouray. You should consider making a reservation, since we got lucky to have a space.

We were exhausted after dinner and just went back to relax.

Day 8:

We had a jeep tour booked with San Juan Scenic Jeep Tours, but needed breakfast first. Our hotel provided vouchers for food at a nearby Mexican Restaurant, but I was concerned about the combination of mexican breakfast and jeep tour, so we went and got coffee and muffins at a coffee shop nearby, Mojo’s Coffee and Teas.

It wasn’t exactly a jeep like I imagined, but a longer jeep with seating in the back for a few rows.

The tour guide was great and personable, and had loads of experience driving (decades!). We were pretty early in the season, so some of the passes that would be available later in the summer were still snowed over. First we headed up to Yankee Boy Basin along a gravel road. We had a lot of fun in the jeep, but we are pretty sure we could have done this route in the Subaru (though Louie was happy to just be riding along)–at one point we got to what our driver decided was the safest place to turn back, and then we saw something like a Nissan Sentra headed our way!

It was fun riding the jeep and hearing old stories from Ouray about jeeping, mining, etc. And the scenery was gorgeous, of course.

It got colder as we went up the mountain and the snow got higher and higher beside us. There was a place where we drove through a little bit of a waterfall and got wet, both there and back.

We didn’t quite make it to Yankee Boy Basin due to too much snow, so then our driver took us up the Amphitheater Trail. This was a true jeep trail–we bottomed out at one point and definitely had a bumpy ride! I have to say I was somewhat glad the earlier trail hadn’t been like that too as several hours of bumpy riding might have been too much.

One funny thing about the tour: the guide kept talking about seeing a bear, and at one point we pulled over and he said, there’s a bear! And we didn’t see it and who knows what that was. Later he had taken some pictures so he sent them over and he included a picture of a bear!

So, Louie was going crazy, like how did he miss that bear? Well, a little bit of sleuthing showed us that the picture was actually from November of 2021, and the tour guide was just pulling our leg, or showing off, or whatever, but the picture definitely wasn’t from our tour, and unlikely a cell phone picture either (too clear for the distance). Too bad though!

After the jeep tour, we grabbed a quick lunch at a place called Kami’s Samis. It was fine, nothing super exciting. We enjoyed sitting outside and watching the town go by though.

Next on the docket was the Perimeter Trail, which is a trail that goes around Ouray, but up in the mountains. We weren’t sure how much we would do, but you can get to it from various points so we thought we’d hike a bit and then see how it went.

Unfortunately I got really freaked out after climbing up some switchbacks, and I headed back down without Louie. He continued on and did a fair bit of it, and enjoyed seeing some waterfalls.

We met back later in the day and got cleaned up and headed to dinner. We decided to try the nearby Mexican restaurant called Mi Mexico as it had good reviews and wasn’t terribly expensive.

The dinner was excellent, and we had a nice time. I should add that we enjoyed and would recommend the Matterhorn Inn: it was clean and well located, gave free breakfast vouchers, and the front desk was always happy to answer questions and give advice. There was a hot tub, but it was located in the middle of the parking lot so we never did try it out.

Day 9: We thought about doing more hiking, but we were both tired (even though I hadn’t done much, I was tired!) and so we went to Mi Mexico again for our free breakfast. We were a little nervous about having so much mexican food, but the breakfast was very nice (you got to pick from a few different entrees, I got huevos rancheros. Oddly, a ham sandwich was one of the choices.) After breakfast, we got packed up and headed towards Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

I think that’s a good place to wrap up for now, so until next time!