July 9 – Silverton

July 9, 2016 – Silverton, Colorado
After breakfast we met at 7:25am to go to the train station. Today we took the Durango & Silverton Narrow Guage Railroad to Silverton. The train has open cars and regular closed cars. Our seats were in a closed car. Since the train is steam powered by burning coal a lot of soot comes back into the open cars. It was a beautiful ride taking us from 6200 feet to 9000 feet. The trip covers 45 miles and takes 3 1/2 hours. This averages out to about 13 mph. The train tracks go along the Upper Animus River most of the way and provided wonderful views.
When we got to Silverton, we walked to the office of the tour company that would take us up to a mine. The driver kept turning around to talk to us while driving up on roads with sheer cliffs next to the road. It made me very nervous. Someone finally asked him to keep his eyes on the road. When we got to the mine we had sandwiches that were provided along with chips and water. We then put on rain stickers and hard hats and road a little train into a mine. There was a lot of water dripping off the ceiling on the way in. This mine has gold, silver, copper, and quartz. It is inactive not because the percentage of good metal to rock is now very low. The mine is open to visitors to see how work was done in the past. I thought the tour was just okay. On our way out we saw a marmot on the side of the road. He was very cooperative and let us all take pictures.
When we came out, we headed back to Silverton. We went through the Silverton Museum which had many interesting exhibits. Linda and I had fun posing next to statues of men and having our picture taken. We referred to them as our boyfriends.
At 3:15pm we were back on our bus heading home to Durango.
We had pizza in town and then walked over to the railroad museum. When we entered we were told they were closing in 20 minutes. The museum is filled with many exhibits. We counted 8 antique cars, 2 railroad cars, and 1 bi-plane. I wish we had more time.
Tomorrow we leave Durango and go to Albuquerque. It will be the last day of the main tour. 22 people will be flying home on Monday. The 17 of us that are doing the post trip will be in Albuquerque Monday and Tuesday nights and Santa Fe Wednesday and Thursday. We will all then fly out next Friday.
Tomorrow is also my 67th birthday. I will enjoy spending it with my friends Earl and Linda.