M&I / GBMINI

Mesa Verde

Posted on August 16, 2010February 23, 2017 by Ian C.

Today we took a “quick trip” to an AMAZING “nearby” site, Mesa Verde – nearby in Colorado-relative terms, we drove maybe 200 miles today but went nowhere!
We knew that Mesa Verde is famous for some 800-1200 year old cliff dwellings built by long-gone native Americans, but we didn’t know just how many building there are (about 4,700 sites in total), or how fabulous the location is, even without the buildings! And since it was so fabulous, I took lots of pictures!

Approaching Mesa Verde (nice roads):

First dwellings we see (not cliff-side!):

Coach tour bus, and the tirst cliff dwelling we see:

And then, the famous Cliff Palace:

Finally a few views on our way back from Mesa Verde:

Denver to Durango

Posted on August 15, 2010February 23, 2017 by Ian C.

Amazing and spectacular roads through Colorado today – 384 miles total, but none of it on two lane highways! Mountains, plains, twisty roads, tourist towns, everything for a great day!

Denver to Durango, the long way

Posted on August 15, 2010February 16, 2017 by Ian C.

Today we headed out from Denver to Durango, initially heading down US 285 South from Denver – a bit of a pain due to the road being single lane each way, but with passing places that enabled us to get ahead eventually of the cars that insisted on doing 40 on a 60 limit, and slowing to 20 around curves! A nice road though with great scenery …

Talking with Jim McDowell this morning, he’d said to be sure and drive through Ouray, and we realized that to do that we needed to switch routes – so we changed to US 50 and headed west over to US 550 – definitely great advice, as the road through Ouray and on to Durango is incredible!