Thursday, August 4, 2011

Relaxing in Silverton

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After my long drive from Lake City via Wolf Creek Pass, I spent my first full day in Silverton just relaxing around town.  Silverton has 2 main streets—one is paved and the other is dirt to provide a more realistic 1800’s mining town feel.

The town has some great buildings that look really authentic (rather than newer construction that just “appears” to look old)---

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Well I suppose “almost” everything is authentic in Silverton.  This pic would have looked right out of the 1800’s if not for the satellite dish right behind the stagecoach driver’s head!IMG_5338

Earlier in the morning, I had driven up the side of one of the tall mountains overlooking the town to take some pictures of the famous narrow-gauge steam railroad train that carries tourists from Durango to Silverton each day.

I got the Tracker parked at the top of the hill about 15 minutes before the first train was to arrive:
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I waited and waited, but never saw the train.  Hmm, that’s strange—aren’t trains always on-time? I checked the train’s website again to confirm the times and thought maybe they didn’t do as many daily runs as they advertised, so I continued to wait on the hill for the next scheduled train…..but still nothing!   Finally, after 2 hours of waiting, I left thinking the trains just must not run on Thursdays.

A few days later when I was reading thru the local paper, I discovered that a large mudslide had occurred the day before I arrived and that all trains were blocked from reaching Silverton for a few days until they could clean it up.   Ah, so that explains it!

My train photos would need to wait a few more days except for this 1 train “stuck” in Silverton that served as a nice backdrop to the nightly gunfight!

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As I returned to the campground, I took a little drive down the county road that leads to many of the 4WD trails just east of town.   The mountains are just spectacular here!

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1 comment:

  1. Just can't beat those blue skies you have to go with the scenery! :)

    ReplyDelete

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