Day 12 - Million Dollar Highway

Woke up utterly freezing. I put the heating on, made a cup of tea & waited for Jackie to surface. Outside my wine stained shorts that we had left out to dry were frozen solid, however there was not a single cloud in the sky.

Just before 9.00am, we set out on the South Rim Road again, this time to visit the lookout spots we didn’t see the previous day. 1st was Devils Lookout, followed by Painted Wall View, Dragon Point and back to Sunset View. In total we did a couples of miles of walking at an altitude of 8000 ft.. The views were just amazing, if not better, with the sun in east giving a different light.

Around 10.30 am we rejoined the US-50 & drove into Montrose, which is the main town for the region. We turned left & headed south on Highway 550. It was a fairly straight blast through Ridgeway & down to Ouray with a back drop of the San Juan Mountains.

At Ouray, we stopped for a coffee beside the Hot Springs Park, where several old ladies were wallowing in the pools. We sat on a bench in front of a meadow, where a middle aged man, all muscles & wearing just a pair of shorts ran round & round & performed various exercises. Inspired to exercise, I did a couple of star jumps.

Feeling much fitter, we set out on the Million Dollar Highway, which took us steeply upwards on a narrow precarious winding road. My arms were aching by the time we reached Red Mountain Pass, it’s highest point at over 11,000 ft. Most of the way down the other side was as equally testing. We arrived in the mining town of Silverton about an hour later having now completed the Million Dollar Highway which is only 24 miles long. It is an exhilarating drive, but not for the faint hearted. It was definitely tricky trying to take photos whilst driving at the same time. It is easy to understand why MDH is one of the best-loved roads in America.

There are 3 possible explanations as to how MDH got it’s name. The 1st is that a traveller on completing the route declared “If you gave me a million dollars I wouldn’t go over it again “. The 2nd is the it cost that amount to build in the 1930s. The 3rd & considered most likely explanation is that the road builders used the waste product from the local gold & silver mines & only years later was it realised that the road contained ore worth a million dollars.

We drove up & down the main drag in Silverton, then continued along Highway 550 towards Durango. Again we had to scale another San Juan mountain, then past Purgatory Skiing Resort & Glacier Golf Course before having a fast wide descent into Durango.

Durango didn’t look much, but it had incredibly large number of motels, so presumably something about it attracted visitors. The region is very outdoorsy, we were amazed how many cyclists (and some runners) we saw on the road between Ouray & Durango, as well as in Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP.

At Durango we turned right and picked up Highway 160 westbound. We sped straight past the town of Mancos & pulled off at Mesa Verde National Park. We felt it would be rude no to stop, particularly as we had our NP Pass so we stopped & headed for the visitors centre. Mesa Verde NP is all about the Ancestral Pueblo people & how they lived about 550 AD. We decided we would give it an hour of our time.

At the ticket desk in the visitors centre, I presented our NP Pass & said to the Ranger that we didn’t want a tour, just a look around. She said, “Well how long have you got?” When I said, “About an hour”, she laughed & said it was a 45 minute drive through the park to the site. We made our excuses & left.

Instead we continued on to the town of Cortez & stopped at the KOA campground where we secured a spot for the night. Unfortunately this KOA did not sell propane & we were desperately low. It was only that morning we realised that we had been boiling the water in our 24/7 for the whole week . We we directed to a garage that would sell it, so we drove out. For the next hour or so it was a total farce as we went from one side of Cortez to the other & back again looking for someone to fill up our propane. On the 5th attempt & now 5 miles out of town we found an old boy at Garden Gas who helped us. To add insult to injury, he filled our propane tank up to full for $2.40. Apparently it was still over half full - indicators are notoriously unreliable.

Finally back at the KOA, we sat in the really warm sun with a beer & Jackie made that much anticipated steak & salad, which was a huge success.

FITBIT = 7,312 steps / 3.39 miles.

Song of the Day - Holy Mountain by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds 🦅

Bonus Song of the Day :-

Gas Panic! by OasisRead more