Ouray

Shane and I went on our honeymoon to  a place called Ouray Colorado. It's a small mountain town that was once a mining town turned tourist/jeep-ing town.

We wanted to take our kids there and this fall seemed to be the time... because we hadn't been enough places this summer. :)

On the way to Ouray, we stopped at Colorado National Monument because we still have Marisa's 4th grade national parks pass. Yahoo!

 

 

Once we got into town, the weather forecast called for some lighting the next few days so we decided it may be our only chance to go to the hot springs pool.

 Outlandishly expensive, but the kids liked it.

Monday, we woke up and went to Silverton which is the next town on the Million Dollar Highway.

There isn't much to do there. It's just another old mining town. You can catch a train to Durango. We didn't.

The Million Dollar Highway is just a narrow windy road through the mountains. It's really amazing but the driver can't take their eyes off the road.

That afternoon we went to the Bachelor Syracuse Mine tour. When Shane and I first came here, they served an amazing breakfast and you got to ride in a mine cart.  Now they only serve breakfast on weekends, and the mine carts are shut down. It was a bit of a bummer, but oh well.

The kids were frustrated by the lack of gold in the one stream that everyone pans for gold in after their tour. lol.

 

Marisa, Ezra and I went to get some ice cream. We each got "two scoops".  More like 8!

That night we picked up our jeep and headed for the hills to get a feel for the area.

We made it to a mountain pass in time for sunset.

The next morning we were up and at em and on our way back up into the mountains.

 

Shane was an excellent driver. We got to see a lot of the old mining structures and a ghost town.

 

 

 

The views are amazing.

 

 

 

We were able to get some fun pictures.

 

 

I LOVE this

 

 

On our way down the mountains, we came across this guy. Really, the only wildlife we saw besides a few deer.... we'll take it.

It is really fun, but by the time it was time to take our jeep back, we were exhausted.

That didn't stop the kids and I from going on a hike to Cascade Falls.

The boys did some rock climbing.

The next day it was time to come home.

We stopped by another national park called The Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

It was very cool.

We really got our money's worth out of that pass. If you have a 4th grader... get the pass... go see the world. It's fantastic!

On the way home we stopped at Freddy's for lunch.

It was a great trip. We really played it up this summer and hit it hard.