August Road Trip Day 6 Durango to Platteville

Sorry that I'm writing that is about a day late but that will be explained later..

Okay so Thursday morning, decided to get my tail out of bed and prepared to get on the road around 0715 or so. I looked outside the window of my hotel room to discover that the parking lot was completely full of vehicles from all over the country and of all different types. A lot of motorcycles were also here as many of the riders were headed towards the annual gathering up in Sturgis, South Dakota.

I gathered up my gear, and proceeded to put everything back into the truck, and head out of town.

While preparing to leave I had received several messages from friends suggesting I check out the Durango-Silverton Railroad Museum (https://www.durangotrain.com/), as it is supposed to be one of the best places to check out still working locomotive engines from way way back (Gotta use that "Wayback Machine") when.

Once I was loaded up I headed out but stopped at one of the local grocery stores to obtain some drinks and "Starbucks" cups that my wife and daughter were wanting (my wife has a substantial collection of cups, yeah how many of those places have you been to baby??? LOL). I ended up with two cups from their and fortunately for me, one of them happened to be one that the wife didn't have possession of yet... Dodged that round.

I made my way to Downtown Durango, (have go to remember to follow my GPS directions sometimes), but only after having to make a U-Turn (a legal one, BTW) and go back in the other direction..

When you enter Downtown Durango, make sure you pay attention to the streets many of them are "One-Way" streets, I did find this out the hard way, but luckily there was no traffic coming towards me... Ha.

The Durango-Silverton Railroad Museum is located at the East end of Main Street and is in between two buildings with a small park in the middle. The Museum itself doesn't open up until about 10am on most days but the gift shop is open at 7am. When I arrived at the Museum I spoke to the young lady behind the counter who told me about the times and then explained to me that they don't usually run the trains out of Durango and that I would have to go up to Rockwood which was about 20 miles north of us and out of my way.

I decided at this point to just walk around a little bit and check out the town, which of course just happened to lead me down to the river (I didn't see the guy, living in a van down by the river.). Durango has that small town feel to it, but is also a popular resort town for those who like to ski, hike and camp..

I walked down towards the Animas River, and walked along the bike-path for a little bit, and stopped at several different places to take pictures. The river looked really nice, and was flowing really well and at certain places along the banks you could see people trying to Fly-Fish. Not sure if they caught anything or not, but they were trying.

At this point I walked back up into town and decided that I was just going to get the show on the road, as I didn't want to wait another hour for the Museum to open up and that I have over 400 miles I was supposed to drive that day, with the intended end goal of reaching Pike's Peak and the Air Force Academy.

The drive from Durango took me onto Route 160 East and through the mountains and valley's and past the many streams and lakes of Southern Colorado, I stopped along the road several times to take some pictures, as these areas were just very surreal to see and in some cases reminded me of pictures that I'd seen of Central Europe as a kid.

While driving along I happened to see this odd looking rock formation and though hmm, I should snap a picture of this, cause you know it was different. I tried in vain to find a safe place to stop to take the picture (note: always think about safety when shooting pictures from the road, especially for yourself but also for those whom are passing you and your vehicle as you do this). This is when I happened upon the sign for the Chimney Rock National Monumen.. So I pulled onto Route 151 and drove up the road about 3 miles and pulled into the park to check this out. After getting up to the main gate of the facility, I did proceed to gain access to the park and drove up a unimproved road for about 2 1/2 miles to another parking lot where now I had to hike up to the top of a hill top to check out the ruins that were there but to also get my pictures of Chimney Rock.

I'm not going to lie, the hike wasn't actually too bad, just remember to take your time (always bring water). The route from the parking lot will take you up a slightly narrow path to the base of the hill top, and from there you will be utilizing many different rocks to climb up to the top, it isn't a steep climb but you have to pay attention. There is a sign at the bottom of the hill top that asks that you wait for people to complete there ascents and descents before you proceed. Please do this as these paths don't have the room for 20 million people all at once...

During the climb up the hill you can't help but look out and see all this beautiful scenery of the surrounding area, all of the hawks flying around in the sky it is really surreal. I finally make it to the top and proceed to check out the surroundings and finally acquire my target, the one reason I humped up (hiked) this hill "Chimney Rock"

The ruins that make up the Chimney Rock National Monument are within the confines of the park, however and based on the information provided by those that work at the park, "Chimney Rock" is actually on Ute Tribe grounds and is there for not associated with the National Park and are considered sacred grounds. So the park asks that you don't attempt to hike up to the rocks as it is very much frowned upon.

I did find a few different spots to take some pictures of Chimney Rock and the surrounding area, it was really awesome at the top, and at one point while looking around I did happen to see an area that would be the perfect place to retire too, it had 2 huge lakes and a smaller pond and was surrounded by the mountains and some huge forest areas as well. Had to tell the guys...

A funny thing I did see up there, a family was there visiting with their three (3) kids. The parents were doing what all of our parents did, "Stand still we want to take a picture", it was like trying to heard cats as the kids were like "REALLY?". The parents got the pictures I was standing there laughing, thinking how much times of changed but then again how much time really hadn't changed at all either. Thank god for digital photography as back in the day we had to wait to get out pictures developed and live with what was printed..

After hanging around there for a few, it was time to head back to the truck ("Sarge" Mobile) and get on the road.

The next town I pulled into was Pagosa Springs and it is what you would think, another resort type town, except this one is really spread out (or at least it seemed like it). I stayed long enough to top off the ole gas tank and get a quick sandwich..

Pulling out of Pagosa Springs will now take you into the mountains and man, it is just beautiful to see, I began stopping so often to get pictures, cause well you know "Mountains!". I really need to figure out a way to mount my camera in my truck so I can take pictures out the front window as I drive and not worry about killing myself let alone anyone else..

One place I tried to stop at was the "Treasure Falls Overlook Site", yeah that wasn't going to happen, there was a tone of cars there and I couldn't find a place to park, so I just kept going. I did stop on the side of the road where you would usually be required to put chains on your vehicle (if there was snow!!) and got some really nice pictures of the valley area and the surrounding mountains.

The climb up into the mountain itself wasn't too bad, I stopped at the "Wolf Creek Pass Overlook" and snapped a few pictures there, the upside to this spot was (at least when I stopped) no other vehicles parked there, but the down side was there was a fence that was about 6 feet tall and it was hard to get some pictures of the area, but I did do it. It was obvious why the state did this, if nothing more than a safety reason, as I'm sure people were dumb enough to climb over the walls and fall down into the many different rocky areas below.

From "Wolf Creek Pass Overlook" the drive up continues with many different places to stop and take pictures of the surrounding area.

Finally making it to the top, I saw a sign for a place called the "Lobo Overlook", and then I think below that it said something about the highest place and the Continental Divide. Well now you peaked my curiosity so up the road we go!

Driving up to the "Lobo Overlook" is nothing but unimproved roads and with very little space to pull of to allow on-coming traffic to pass, so just be very very careful driving up.. This is worth the drive up too.

Upon reaching the top you have to two choice for where to go and park and to observe the area, I recommend that you check out both places. The other thing you must be aware of is that it is "WINDY" up there and also slightly chilly as well (yeah well I've been driving through the desert for a few days and the average temperature was 100 degrees or more). The views of the surrounding mountains, valley's etc are just beautiful, so take the time to do this drive up...

Once I was done here and I blew up my Facebook feed with more pictures of this incredible trip, it was time to get going again.

From the "Lobo Overlook" it was on to the towns of "South Fork" and "Del Norte" and eventually the push to start heading north. After heading out of the town of "Del Norte" I drove up route 112 and saw on the left side of the road a heard of Buffalo (they weren't wild roaming, they were on a farm) but after that nothing but open space. Just before the town of "Center" I turned left on to Route 285 which would now take me through more mountains and small towns. Surprisingly I did have cell phone signal out here and was able to communicate with my wife and friends as they tracked my progress.

After looking at my GPS and realizing that I wouldn't make it to "Pike's Peak until way after dark and then probably not even make it to the Air Force Academy, I spoke with my wife and agreed with here that I should push on to Platteville and the 1/9 Reunion.

From the town of Johnson Village it is roughly a 3 hour drive to Platteville, but let me tell you, it is as everything was on this trip a beautiful drive, I passed through many small towns and saw lots of valley's that had some huge ranches on them and eventually I would be driving back through the mountains and this time I got to see the "North Fork South Platte River" run along side of the road, and just sit in my truck awe struck at how beautiful it was and how I wished I could find a place to live there next to these mountain streams.

Eventually after stopping to take many pictures again, I told myself that I needed to stop and just get moving to make it up to Platteville, at this point as I'm saying this to myself, I'm still 1 1/2 hours away from my final destination.

After a driving a while longer on Route 285 I eventually make it to Interstate 25 (my god a real road/ Interstate, I can go faster than 60 miles an hour!) I proceed North on Interstate 25 which eventually leads to me to Interstate 70 and heads me towards Denver.

Once I'm on Interstate 70 East, I have another 12 miles before I get to my exit, for Interstate 76 North towards Fort Morgan and then another 10 miles to State Route 85 North which will lead me to Platteville. Oh wait, I forgot to mention that someone decided that we have to work on the roads and thus slow everyone down and merge lanes you know. Cause hey road construction!!!! The plus side to not driving in California right now, is that it seems like people out here understand what it means to merge lanes and not wait until the last second to more over and thus slow everything else down...

Eventually after getting through the construction zones I made it to the exit for Route 85 "Brighton) and my 30 mile run up the road to the Reunion. I eventually make to my friends home and his back yard where many of us are camping out this weekend. I decided to wait until Friday morning to set-up my tent as the winds are just crazy and it is way too dark to do anything. So my Marine Brother Brigt offered for me to crash out in his camper for the night and I'd must set-up my tent in the morning.

Now time to get off the road for a few days and relax with a bunch of Great Marines/ Corpsman and their families.

Semper Fi,
Frank
1/9 Everywhere