We rode up and down the Million Dollar Highway yesterday. The canyon-clinging stretch of highway between Durango, Silverton and Ouray is called the "Million Dollar Highway" either because it cost so much to build, the amount of gold ore that remained in the roadway's fill or the figurative price for those amazing San Juan Mountain views. Take your pick.
The views were indeed spectacular with the Aspen trees in full Fall color. I swear there were 50 shades of yellow on the mountain sides. I was riding shotgun and it seemed that both coming and going I was next to the ga
zillion-foot drop off. It’s a good thing that heights don’t bother me because some of those chasms were amazing. We were riding in Lynn Heenan’s truck and I will admit that sometimes its fun to be a passenger and just ogle the sights.
We stopped several times along the way for pictures and made an extended stop at Molas Pass. Winter is in the air here and you sure could tell when you stepped out of a warm vehicle into the brisk, mountain air of the pass. Later in the day we would encounter snow flurries, but the sky was a crystal blue with puffy white clouds scampering overhead. The clouds threw shadows over patches of the landscape. One could see for miles from our vantage point and it was easy to visualize the entire landscape covered in white. Most of the mountain tops are already capped with snow and it was apparent that the snow was getting thicker up there as our day progressed.
Silverton was our first destination stop and we spent some time looking for a place to eat lunch and do a bit of tourist shopping. The “HandleBar” – our intended lunch stop – was closed for the season so we took seats in “The Lone Spur Restaurant” which boasted a live piano player named Lacey. She played a combination of ragtime and western songs. Out waitress, Sarah, was great and we had a super tasty lunch. Afterword Lynn and I wandered into a marijuana dispensary to check it out and ended up purchasing a joint and some chocolate candy. This was for later of course.
Then we set out for Ouray, one of the most picturesque mountain villages you will ever see. We drove around for awhile and then motored on to Ridgeway. There we finally found what we were looking for which was a batch of special brownies – also for later. Then we headed back to Durango. Again we stopped a couple of times, especially at a nifty waterfall outside of Ouray.
We thought about stopping at a Native American restaurant for dinner, but their advertised closing time was confusing and so we ended up at Dennys where most of us had breakfast. After that we went back to the campground to watch a little TV and have some dessert. It turned out to be a very mellow evening.
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