Telluride

 Just before you enter into town there is meadow where elk have taken up residence. There were dozens of them grazing in the field. It's a pretty cool welcome to a pretty cool town.
Telluride is definitely a posh town. It's a tiny ski town with pricey shops and fine dining. We took the cheap route by stopping into the thrift shop (surprisingly not much good stuff), window shopping, taking the free gondola ride and grabbing a small pizza.

Downtown Telluride

Riding up the mountain

 Bear with me...the pictures won't be in order, but it's not too hard to follow along.
So we pull into town and it's really chilly. Alex was wearing shorts and Lilia was cold so we stopped into the thrift shop and snagged some ski socks. Perfect chill-weather accessory. We really didn't have a plan for the afternoon in Telluride. We love just spontaneously exploring places, seeing what we can find.
Well we saw a sign for a free gondola ride. We made our way over to the solar-powered ride and headed to the top. We got off at the first stop (you can keep going, but we didn't).
At this first stop are gorgeous views of Telluride and other mountain peaks, and a nature center.

Views of mountain peaks

The town of Telluride

 So if you drive to the end of town it takes you towards these two waterfalls. The waterfall pictured in the photo with the caption "The town if Telluride" is a different waterfall all together. So pictured to the right is a famous waterfall, Bridal Veil Falls. At the top of the falls is a privately owned power plant. You can hike to the top of the falls; it is 4.2 miles one way. We weren't up for hiking that day, but definitely next time. In fact Telluride boasts that they have almost 40 hikes. It is another valley town with stunning scenery. Anywhere you point your camera is a good photo op.

Here we are at the top of the gondola ride again. This is me and the kids in the nature center. It was done really well. I highly recommend it. There were furs displayed and you had to guess which animal they were. There were skulls and skat (poop). Any nature/animal lovers dream.

Overlooking Telluride

Ouray with the Brindleys & Vassars

 The town of Ouray sits in the southwest corner of Colorado. It's about a 5, 5 1/2 hour drive from Colorado Springs. It's a beautiful valley, and by valley that means it sits at 7.792ft, town surrounded by 13,000 foot mountain. It's really just stunning! If you are an outdoor enthusiast, or photographer, or both, this is the place for you. The best thing about the town is you walk up a street and you start hiking into the mountains. Our favorite was the perimeter trail, which is a 5.9 mile hike, and it is listed at streneous. I would agree. Dave and I did about two-thrids of the trail in 2.5 hours. The whole thing is supposed to take 3.5-4hrs, but we had a specific time limit and we needed to be back. Totally worth it though!

Scene from the perimeter trail

 So Dave's parents, Julie, Pete and Blake all came to Ouray too. We had a great time all together. Pete, Julie, Dave and myself went out on a double date one night. We had such a great time getting to know one another better. We hit up the Ouray hot springs after dinner. It was so much fun!
The hot springs is a must do. We learned they are doing a million dollar make-over to the pools. They look rather shabby, but they feel incredible. The water is only about 2 1/2 feet deep everywhere. They have three mineral pools. The one we are in is the warm pool averaging 95 degrees. The one behind us with the volleyball net is the cool pool averaging 77 degrees. The other smaller pool is the HOT pool averaging 104 degrees. You can feel the really hot water pushing its way through the vents warming the space. It feels incredible.

 We explored with Al & Marilyn one chilly morning. The kids were in shorts and short sleeves and they were freezing. I forgot to grab their sweatshirts. Ouray is amazing in that you can experiecne spring/fall weather and summer weather all in one day. Dave says, "No matter how you dress for Colorado, it's wrong." It's completely true.
We took a stroll along the beautiful Uncompahgre River. (I cannot remember how to pronounce that one.) The water was rushing loudly past us. We stopped to throw stones in along a bank and kept a few as a memory.

Pete and Blake on the perimeter trail

Pete and Blake looking out over Ouray

In town

 Blake is so much fun. She is 19 months and full of energy. She is obsessed with loofahs (she is holding three in the picture). Julie says they are so cheap; it's so easy to make her happy! She had so much fun playing with her big cousins, Lilia and Alex.

Pete and Dave 

Ouray with the Driggers

 Cascade falls is at the top of 8th street. It's a great first walk/hike to stretch your legs after the LONG car ride it takes just to get to Ouray.



We joined staff with Kyle and Emily 12 years ago and we have been best friends ever since. God keeps taking us along similar paths. They are back from living overseas and have started a Bridges Ministry in San Francisco's Bay area. They love it!

 Can you see the cave on the right hand side of the picture? Look for a splotch of neon yellow.

So a man talked to me about the falls. He said he had been coming to Ouray for 50 years and he hasn't seen this much water at these falls in seven years! I guess we were lucky. It rain a bit each day, but not enough to ruin your plans.







It was so scary to watch Dave hoist down each kid (pictured below). The rocks were slick from rain that afternoon. I was waiting for someone to get hurt. Thankfully no one did!

 One fantastic hike that's pretty easy for the kids is to do Box Canyon. You walk out of town maybe near 5th street and walk along the dirt road behind town. You begin on the perimeter trail climbing up these crazy steep stairs. Once you cross the white bridge, stopping to admire the breath-taking view of Ouray, keep going down the trail and follow signs for Box Canyon. You climb down misted steel stairs to the bottom of the canyon. It was really loud, cold and wet, but so amazing and worth it!

The canyon

Looking up out of the canyon

At the bottom

Emily and Aubrey at Cascade Falls

 Stephen (6), Alex (5), Sydney (8), Lilia (8).
When kids hike together there is an incredible comradery that pushes away all whining and complaining. They talk among themselves and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, following the adults. It's fantastic!

This is the tunnel you walk through just before you come out over the bridge.

These two are long-distance best friends. They were taking a selfie.

The Million Dollar Highway to Silverton

  I believe this stretch of road, passing Ironton, is one of the maybe three flat, straight stretches of the hour long drive. Actually it wouldn't take so long, but you have, I mean want to drive 10-20 miles an hour because the roads are so curvy with a very long drop, and no guardrail.
Anyway, Ironton is an old ghost town. You can only access the old mining houses if you have an off-road vehicle. We did not.
We did pull over to take cool pictures though! The rocks are red from Iron - just incase you didn't figure it out on your own.

Ironton

 Our final destination was Silverton. It's an old mining town as well. Pictured here is the famous, Silverton/Durango railroad. We didn't do it, but my parents did quite a few years ago. My dad's pictures are incredible! It's worth the $$$.
We arrived into Silverton just in time to see the train pull it. It was pretty cool.

Group pic on the hiking trail near Silverton

 An old mine close to Silverton.








There isn't a ton to do in Silverton, but one cool thing (for kids) is to "pan for gold." Emily and I walked around town while the dads and kids scowered through a bag of gems and fools gold, along with other rocks and dirt. The idea is to pan like they used to do. They loved it!

 Here's is what the drive is like along the Million Dollar highway. It gets its name because it cost one million dollars to make. It could easily be named this for the views though.

Silverton

Silverton

 So on our way into town we had passed a beautiful park with a gorgeous river flowing through it. It was late in the afternoon, but we took the road that wove along the river and led us deeper into beautiful mountain vistas. We passed camp grounds and even tents just plopped on the lush green landscape.
We drove slowly down the dirt road until we came to a parking lot where there was a trailhead. The hike to the summit of some peak was rather far for our five children to accomplish, but we thought we would just walk until we needed to turn around.
We got out of the car and the blazing sun was heating us up quickly. I lathered us up with sunscreen, filled up our Nalgenes and all nine of us hit the trail.
We were warned by passer-byers that the trail was a bit muddy. Most of us were in sneakers, but the Brindley and Driggers all love a good adventure.

 Lilia led the way with great vigor. Sydney followed with the rest of the gang in tow. There isn't normally water on this part of the trail, but there has been SO MUCH RAIN that there was lots of mud and lots of streams. Pour Sydney got her shoe stuck in a seriously muddy spot. The rest of the group found a way around in the woods. Well we made it to a beautiful open space with a nice view of the mountain top. I set up my camera and we snapped a group pic. (above). Then we felt a few sprinkles. Then we heard thunder. Then we descended rather quickly to the parking lot. We were getting a bit rained on, but it wasn't too big of a deal. But poor Stephen fell into one of those small streams that probably isn't normally there, and got his pants and shirt all wet. Thankfully we weren't one of the ones sleeping in a tent that night. We were able to drive back to a house and change into dry, warm clothes.