July 4th Week Problems

Monday, July 2, 2012--Aztec, NM and Durango, Silverton, and Ouray, CO

It was quite a long road trip today to get out of New Mexico.  I had to go through Farmington and northward from there.  Just after Farmington, I passed through Aztec, a small town with a National Historic Shrine I had never heard about before.  I stopped there and found it is a World Heritage Site.  It is a complex of stone buildings up to 3 stories high around a huge ceremonial ground with a giant kiwa in the middle.  Because I now have a Senior Pass for National Parks, I got in free!  It was fascinating.  The reason it is called Aztec is that the original European settlers figured the Aztecs built it, since they had no idea that North American tribes ever built buildings.  But research shows that it was Pueblo Indians who built it.  The park service had a loaner booklet that told about numbered sites as I toured the place.

Next stop was Durango, Colorado.  It is a much bigger town than I thought.  I parked and walked up and down the main streets of the old part of town.  They are lined with tourist shops.  (Local shops are in the mall and strip centers on the edge of town.)  It's a pretty town with the mountains surrounding it.  It seems to be a popular retirement destination with lots of condos both on the edge of town and downtown. No, I didn't take the train to Silverton.  It takes a lot of advanced planning to do that and requires a stay of 2 nights.  I'm sure the ride is nice, but I had to drive the same valley when I left town.

While in Durango, I explored the campus of Ft. Lewis College.  It's rather unique in that it is a state school designed to mimic the experience of a small liberal arts college at state tuition rates.  It's location surprised me--on top of a mountain beside the town meaning that students have to go up and down that mountain often to get from dormitories to downtown which is just a few blocks a way and back.  How exhausting and difficult it must be to walk or bike back and forth.

I probably should have stayed in Durango for the night, but I pushed to get to Silverton.  I didn't expect it to be such a small place.  Silverton is a rugged town with only the main street paved with asphalt.  The other streets are packed, crushed stone.  The buildings are more rugged, too, with lots of false wooden fronts.  I parked and walked up and down the streets there, too.  They have a hostel there, so I tried to see if they had anything available.  No one was working there.  I checked back later, and there still was no one.

That made me decide to continue to Ouray another 25 miles up the road.  It, too, is an old historic town in a very dramatic setting within the mountains.  They have several motels and even some of them have reasonable prices (under $75), but they mostly had out NO VACANCY signs.  Everyone seems to have taken off the whole week for their vacation, since July 4 falls in the middle of it.  The tourist office said that Orvis Hot Springs still had one tent site available, so that is where I am.  It's also available for tomorrow night, so I may stay here for 2 nights.  I'll decide by tomorrow morning.  The biggest problem is that there are high winds and the tent site is a wooden platform.  It's difficult to keep it in place.  I took out my shoe strings and tied two corners of it down.

Steps Walked:  11,857

Distance Driven:  314 miles (505 km)