Here's a few photos from our recent short vacation to parts of northern Arizona and SW Colorado.
Along the highway there is a view point where you can see
some 'petroglyph' artwork.
Unfortunately many have been defaced with graffitti by
total idiots.
Proceeding up route '666'.
Religious nuts have successfully lobbied to have this
highway officially changed to 491. Our car navigation
system still shows the original designation. We listened to
"Friend of the Devil" by the Grateful Dead over and over
again while driving it!
We visited friends who recently purchased a town house at a beautiful new development called the Glacier Club, which is about 20 miles north of Durango. We had a chance to play golf. As we started out on the back nine we got rained out so promptly retreated to their patio for martinis before dinner.
Looking down on the driving range from the clubhouse
Ed and Mary's townhouse.
A nice old hotel in downtown Durango.
Before dinner we had a nice treat in Downtown Durango
Ed and Mary at dinner
This was Mike's birthday. We planned to take a 'short
trip'
north from Durango towards Silverton and Ouray, both scenic
old
mining towns. We headed out and stopped on the way to
Silverton
several times for nice photo opportunities.
By the side of the road
Silverton, as we passed by. We continued north towards
Ouray,
and planned to come back through Silverton for lunch.
The views just got better and better
By the time we got to Ouray, we thought it would be nice to drive around the loop and kept on going towards Telluride. There were lots more things to see on the west side of the mountains.
Near Telluride
When we got heading back towards Durango we realized we'd be driving right by Mesa Verde
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On the highway to Winslow you pass right by the 'four corners' area. For $3.00 each you can be in FIVE states at once: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and CONFUSION. The Indians in the area have set up a whole bunch of little stands to sell all sorts of useless trinkets .. we didn't buy any.
Straddling the Line[s]
Further on down the road towards Winslow.
We stopped briefly at Canyon de Chelly, another beautiful area with lots of old Indian ruins. Though these photos don't show it the weather was quite threatening and we were nervous about running around on the tops of these rock formations in the middle of a thunderstorm, so our time there was quite limited. It gives us a good excuse to go back up there for a visit sometime later.
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Mary and Ed suggested we stay at La Posada, and old "Harvey Hotel" built during the 1930's to service the railroad traffic that stopped on the way out to California and back. The hotel was fantastic and we had a wonderful dinner there Monday evening.
After checking out of the hotel Tuesday morning, we walked
a block or two west from the hotel to see the only other
thing in Winslow that's such a fine site to see.
They have made a nice little park on that famous corner,
but unfortunately the building to the west side (an old
Penney's) burned down at some point. As a result, the city
is afraid the wall (the one with painting of the 'Flat Bed
Ford') will fall on you so you can't actually see the
'stander' except through a chain link fence.
To read more about this nice little park, check out
this link.
Being the curious sort I wondered why Jackson Browne who
wrote the song initially and Glen Frey (who actually added
the part about Winslow) chose Winslow as the location to
stand on. As with all things on the internet you never know
if what you find is true, but after doing a little Googling
on the internet, I also found a story about how Winslow
became the location for the corner. According to the story:
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The flat bed Ford, Slowing Down
Candace, Standing on another Corner
From Winslow, you drive about 20 miles west to the world famous meteor crater that was created about 50,000 years ago at this very spot. As we arrived there was a tour just starting. Candace elected to sit it out as the trail is a bit uneven and she's still nervous on rough terrain after her leg incident about a year ago. So Mike took the tour out to this scenic spot.
It's just a big hole in the ground.