Driving Narrow, Winding, Beautiful Million Dollar Highway

We drove over the Million Dollar Highway in western Colorado twice in the past week, once to visit Silverton from Ouray and then, with the trailer, moving from Ouray to Bayfield. 

Why is it called the Million Dollar Highway?   I thought it was because that is how much it cost to build. Google tells me it is because of the views.  And they are impressive.

Much of the highway is narrow with lots of curves and no shoulder or guardrail.  It is certainly not for the faint-of-heart and must be really difficult for the many Texans who come to Colorado in the summer.

Last winter brought lots of snow and there were numerous avalanches along the highway.  Here we could see the trees knocked down and the dirt left from the snow that came down the mountain.

This view from our GPS shows us what the road ahead looks like.

The hillsides are often very green.

This is a view of part of the San Juan Mountains.

This area of Colorado saw lots of silver mining in the 1800s.  There is still some evidence of the mining buildings.

As if the GPS view wasn't bad enough, look at this sign--a 10 mph curve.  And obeying the speed limit is a very good idea.

Another spectacular view.

More evidence of avalanches.

Beautiful red mountain.

We both grew up in Colorado and were often in the mountains.  Since we no longer live here, it is sos good to spend a lot of time enjoying those mountains during this summer's travels.

Trains and Churches

Silverton is not known just for it's flowers or the road you drive to get there, but for it's train, the Durango and Silverton Railroad.  This tourist train has been drawing visitors to Durango for years.  Each summer day, one or more trains depart Durango for Silverton, arriving about noon.  Passengers  head to the restaurants and souvenir shops in town.  Although those shops are open several hours a day, it is the hours from noon to about 1:30 or 2 when they do most of their business.  The train passengers are the main  reason the town is still alive.

We saw the train coming around the corner about the time we completed our shopping.

The large coal-burning engine came to a stop right in front of us.

As was true of most mining towns, Silverton had both saloons and restaurants, but also lots of churches.  There are several attractive church buildings within sight of each other.

We have ridden the Durango and Silverton train many times over the years, bringing our 2 boys on the trip at least twice. Once John's parents rode with us. It was good to visit the town of Silverton and see the train this time.

Flowers in Silverton

Wednesday, we drove over the Million Dollar Highway from Ouray to Silverton.  The road is called by that name because of the cost paid to bill it.  Today, it also refers to the views.  I will show some of those views in another post.

Silverton is an old silver mining camp located an an elevation of 9,307 ft.  It was founded in 1885. 

We again saw flowers in a walk around Silverton.  I thought this wagon  was creative.

Look at all this different colors.

We saw a window box on the second story of this old building.  Very pretty, from inside and out.

More lupine and daisies.

The blue columbine is Colorado's state flower and we see them often.

I had never seen white columbine before.