Back to Colorado!

Since Jan and I have been traveling for so many years, it is getting harder and harder to find roads we haven't been on.  Sounds ridiculous, but we have been using several Rand McNally Atlases, and the individual state atlases from either Delorme or Benchmark to mark all the roads we've traveled on.  Jan marks the motorhome routing with one color and the toad routing with another.  So we have a lot of marked up maps!  As we were making our way from the California coast to Durango, CO, we noticed we could go across a new road to us, The Loneliest Road in America, route 50 across Nevada.  How we missed that I don't know.  So off we went, and it was a long way and it was lonely, mostly through desert although we crossed 15 mountain passes in about 400 miles.  We started counting cars, but lost track, but I'll bet we only passed 50 cars and trucks, so pretty lonely.

A representative section of the highway

Pretty straight, huh?

That got us into Utah and with our delay for the leak only afforded us one night in Moab.  Then we decided to take the long way, and much more scenic way over to Durango.  We first went south out of Moab then turned east on a tiny winding highway, 46 in Utah turning to 90 in Colorado to Naturita, then picking up 141, and 145 towards Telluride, part of the San Juan Parkway, and since I will not take the motorhome on the Million Dollar Highway, we continued down 145 through Dolores finally picking up 160 to Durango.  This route has quite the windy steep descent just as you enter CO.  It is 9% and really tight, and it goes on for a couple miles, a bit of a challenge in other words.

The entrance to the descent

Pretty tight!

Now I don't know, but regardless and to the fact we must be living right, the weather is magnificent!  Absolutely clear, no humidity, highs in the 60-70's, and down in the 30-40's at night.  We could not have planned it any better.  This is the latest in the year we have ever been to Durango and we wondered if all the color would be past?  

A little snow on them thar hills

But even as we noticed many of the aspens had lost their leaves, there were still patches of brilliant color!

Just below Telluride

Yay!! Color!!!

We are now in Durango for 5 days really enjoying ourselves.  This is one of our absolute favorite places.  The campground is almost empty, something we've never seen here before and will close in a few days, many of the shops are closed up in Silverton, and everyone we talk to and comment about the glorious weather reminds us that we could be having a blizzard just as easily!  Another day or so, then south we go, cause there is no way we want to push our luck and find one of those blizzards:-)

Yeah, it really is gorgeous here