Day 6 July 10
Today Steve was in his glory. At breakfast 2 other guests of the Inn on the Paseo were very interested in the car and asked dozens of questions about it. As we all know, there is nothing Steve likes better than to talk about his car. After telling them how good it’s been running he got in to start it and to his amazement it didn’t start! It took him several times trying until he finally realized he had both gas values shut off! Oops! Everyone knows the “A” doesn’t run without gas!
We left our B & B at 8:45, but before we could leave Santa Fe we had to stop for another photo opp. This one was by the Route 66 sign near the center of town. As I took the picture, so did several other people who were out and about. As I’ve told Steve before, we’re always a big attraction!
Durango, CO is about 200 miles from Santa Fe and in a modern car you can drive that in about 4 hours. For us it took approximately 7. The scenery was spectacular and it reminded us of the TV show Bonanza or the Big Valley! I kept humming in my head songs like “Don’t Fence Me In”, “This Land is Your Land” and “Home on the Range”.
We drove mostly on highway 84 which was actually a nice 2 lane road and if we had a backup of cars behind us we were able to pull off to the side and let them pass. Even though, I thought the highway was quite nice, I couldn’t believe all roadside crosses, where someone had died. If I’d been counting I bet there were at least 20 or more spread out along the highway. One place had as many as 4 crosses in one spot. Obviously, the road is more dangerous than it appears.
Along the way we only had to pull over twice to let the car’s engine cool after going up some steep hills. To help keep the gasoline cool Steve wrapped water soaked rags on the carburetor and the sediment bowl. He thinks it helped.
We planned on having lunch in Pagosa Springs, not realizing it was a resort town. People come here for it’s hot springs and water activities in the San Juan River that runs through the town. It’s a beautiful area surrounded by the San Juan Mountains and national forest. Unfortunately for us it was packed with tourists and cars! We couldn’t find a place to eat, either because they’d stopped serving lunch or no parking was to be found. We finally settled on a coffee shop where we each got a smoothie.
We arrived in Durango around 4pm and had reservations to stay in the historic Strater Hotel. It’s a beautiful hotel built in 1887. It was remodeled in 1983 with a Victorian charm that reminds me of the St. James in Red Wing, except nicer. Many well-known people have stayed here, most notably was Louis L’Amour, the western author.
We decided we would eat dinner at the Diamond Belle, the restored saloon in the hotel. The waitresses are dressed up as Saloon Hall Girls and Steve couldn’t resist getting his picture taken with ours. This then led him to ask would they mind if he took their picture by our car? Of course they were happy to do it.
Tomorrow we’re riding the train to Silverton.
Interesting facts:
Temperature was 99
Highest Elevation 7900
Highest Gas $3.59 a gallon
Fastest we went up the hills was 23 mph
Going down 58 mph
Comentarios