Sunday, July 17, 2011

I Think I Can...

Today's adventure took us to Historic Downtown Durango where we boarded

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the Durango & Silverton Scenic train.

  This is a narrow gage railroad. The Denver & Rio Grande Railway arrived in Durango on August 5, 1880, and construction on the line began in the fall of that same year.  By July of 1882, the tracks to Silverton were completed.  The line was originally constructed to haul silver and gold ore from the mountains.  However, passengers soon realized it was the view that was truly precious.  This scenic line has been in continuous operation ever since.

The coal fired, steam powered train uses from 3 to 5 tons of coal every trip.

  Today, it chugged out of the

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out of the Durango Depot and headed through town across 550 and into

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the back country.  It passed by

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beautiful lakes, and climbed up and up, and

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around the mountain.

We entered

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the San Juan National Forest and while the train keep chugging along, we continued to enjoy...

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beautiful flowers,

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wildlife,

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crazy people on raging rivers, and

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mountain shadows on calm waters.

There were places that the train

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ducked under bridges,

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let off steam, took on water, and

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crept by the rocky walls of the canyon.

And, after a 3-1/2 hours of a breath taking trip, we arrived in

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Silverton.

We pulled into the

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Depot just after noon.  After posing for a

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picture or

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two, we decided it was time

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for lunch.

  Afterwards, we had plenty of time to do a little

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shopping and laughing.  When we had shopped until we dropped, we stopped off by the local ice cream shop before it was time to

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board our bus for the trip back to the

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Durango Depot.

Thanks to the little engine that said, "I think I can" and chugged all the way up and through the back country from Durango to Silverton, we were able to enjoy yet another view of this beautiful area of Colorado.

3 comments:

  1. Back in April 2009 we rode the train to Cascade, the halfway point, because there was still snow further north. We LOVED it!! The scenery was absolutely gorgeous.

    So glad you're having a great time!

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  2. We loved that train ride when we were out there... Glad you all had fun on it!
    Have fun & Travel safe
    Donna

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  3. Looks like lots of fun and is on my bucket list..

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