The Million Dollar Highway... to Silverton

 the next day was a nice dry but cold day so we attempted the Million Dollar Highway from Ouray to Silverton.

There are NO guardrails.

There a Lot of Steep downhills to see from the passenger seat.

I might have screamed once ( or twice)

You can google more about it  - but the sign said in 1883 it cost $10K per mile to build it - so that is one of the reasons it got its name... Oh my!

Ready?

They also call this area the Switzerland of of America - Its quite beautiful!!

K grew up listening to this song called Black Bear Road by CW McCall - so we had to find the road... and then we had to play the song - we all laughed ...

This was the road....

My son drove, K held on the Hand holds, i took photos....

 You can see the road to the left of the photo... No Guard Rails you all... None...

We found a lot of old abandoned mines... The Idarado Mining company is restoring some of them - I hope that means you can tour then at some time ;-)

WE made it over to Silverton - what a cute little town.

The main road is very Old Timey - I think we got there a little late in the season, not a lot was open.

And then we had to drive back. K was much more relaxed as he was on the Mountain Side.... so he couldn't see the drop offs as easy.../

On the way back we stopped at this Box Canyon - it was really cool. Ouray is known for ice climbing, so they had water spraying to help create ice for the Ice climbers, but while they are waiting for the ice to grow - you could hike into the box Canyon... it was super cool. ( and really cool... cold in fact!)

There is still some mining equipment in the river that has been abandoned. I think it was also to original location of the hot springs, but now the water is piped out to the Hot springs in town.

It was a nice sightseeing trip. I was surprised tho - the other two days there were almost no people in town. This time when we got back, the restaurants had waiting lines... so we went to the Saloon!

The Full Tilt Saloon - it was a cool little joint. We walked in and were 3 of the 6 people in the joint.... got our food, and by the time it had arrived.... the place was full. With One Waiter - I felt so bad for him, but he did a great job.. and we were full!!

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