We departed from Cortez, Colorado at 8:30 in the morning to travel to Montrose, Colorado by way of Durango, Silverton, and Ouway. This is a beautiful drive and, in my opinion, should be placed on your "bucket list" of things to do in this life. Magnificent is not a strong enough adjective. This is a fantastic drive.

The 45 mile drive to Durango was a retracing of our travel from the previous day, but it was such a nice morning that we both enjoyed the drive. It is amazing what you can see when you travel in the opposite direction. Things that were behind you the day before are now right in your face. The day was fresh and cool making the trip very pleasant.

Once we left Durango, we headed north towards Silverton, Colorado. There is a narrow-gauge railroad train that travels from Durango to Silverton on a daily basis. It is a nine-hour round trip taking 3.5 hours each way and a couple of hours in Silverton. The train takes up most of the day, so we decided that we would just drive the road that parallels the train route. We think the cost is also $150 per person, so we could save some "bucks" by driving it ourselves. The climb to Silverton is beautiful with high peaks covered with snow. Colorado has 58 peaks that reach above 14,000 feet. Many of them are along this route. Also, the roads are well maintained with steep drop-offs and very few guardrails. It can be a little nerve-wracking for people afraid of heights; like Lisa. I made sure that I stayed nearer to the center of the road in these areas and I drove slowly and deliberately. I was sure to let her know if I planned to head for the side of the road for a pull-out or to take picture. Lisa did great. On this stretch of the highway, we stopped and Lisa met some friendly folks who live in Indiana where Lisa worked for a while as a newspaper reporter. They all knew the Indiana area very well.

The drive from Silverton to Ouray (pronounced Oo-ray) was even more spectacular. Red Mountain, Mosses Peak, and much more. A huge series of "switchbacks" with sharp drop-offs did not make Lisa's nerves settle down, but it was beautiful. Just before we arrived at Ouray, we found a pull-off with a large waterfall and super-scenic views the surrounding mountains. As we continued on towards Ouray, we began the descent into the town itself. Just as we entered the town, we found a pull-off with a very narrow slot canyon with a significant amount of water flowing through the canyon. We notice that there were many water pipes all around the canyon. Apparently, during the winter, water is sprayed upon the walls of the canyon and huge sheets of ice form. Then Ouray hosts the world championship for ice climbing. It is a great place for spectators to watch the climbers too. We traveled into Ouray, which is a very nice town. You could buy food, but there is still considerable concern about the Corona virus. We drove through town, but did not stop except to buy a couple of great sandwiches. It was a very interesting purchase. I walked up to the open door of the sandwich shop and there was a posted number for me to call. The person who answered the phone was about 15 feet away from me behind the food counter and began taking my order. Really weird; they talked to me like I was in another state when I was right there and could have told them verbally what I wanted. Then they wanted me to pay with a card. I told them I preferred to pay cash so that they would at least have acknowledge my existence. Great sandwich though. We drove through town and then proceeded to Montrose.

After departing Ouray, we drove to Telluride Ski Resort. The drive was beautiful and the Telluride area is quite amazing and spectacular. Telluride Village was open and there were quite a few folks there. Very "touristy" but nice. We drove up the canyon to the area where the river water was coming down off the mountain. There is a large water fall called "Bridal Falls," and right next to the falls was a large building that turned out to be a powerplant. To get to the plant, one would have to drive a treacherous road that "zig-zagged" up the steep slope. You would not get me on that road, but we did talk to a guy who worked at the power plant every day. Kind of crazy. We then drove to the Resort at Telluride. Clearly, there were many "filthy rich"people with vacation homes there. The work at the power plant said that millionaires moved to Telluride, but now the billionaires have driven them out. Oprah lives in one of the homes that we drove past. We then went into the resort area with all the condos and stores. Pretty fancy, to say the least. The people in the stores were very "Corona Conscious." They were not open, but were preparing to open and wanted us to be sure that they would be clean when the time came. I think the mistook us for someone who was supposed to be there. Little did they know that we were the Telluride equivalent of homeless vagrants. I felt kind of special though. We stayed for a while and then departed for a one-hour drive to Montrose.

In Montrose, we checked into a Holiday Inn Express. The facility was nice and made it easy to relax. We had seen so much and taken so many photos and videos that I took this time to download the media to our computer from our cameras. I sorted the photos by portion of the trip and then we could put the photos on the blog. We have four cameras with two Apple I-Phones, our Nikon 7200, and a GoPro Hero 8. We end up with a whole host of great photos and videos for the blog. The videos will be placed into Camtasia and then downloaded to YouTube for the blog.