Durango

What is it about road trips that make them seem so much greater in theory (the road part, not the trip part, I'm always game for a trip to about anywhere.) It was a great trip but got off to a rocky start...

We were on the road about 5 hours, made it to NM when we heard that it had snowed earlier in the day there and there were tons of wrecks on I-40 and they had SHUT DOWN THE INTERSTATE due to wrecks/black ice. Yup, I said they shut the whole thing down, from Tucumcari, NM almost to Albuquerque. So we stopped off in Tucumcari, not sure what to do, and let me tell you, that is not a happenin place. Although we had a great peace of chocolate pie at the little diner there. They ended up keeping the interstate closed until the next morning, so we lost the room we had booked in Albuquerque and had to get another room in Tucumcari. And eat at the delicious Pizza Hut Italian Bistro, where we found out through the trucker grapevine that WILLY NELSON was also stranded, only in Santa Rosa, a few miles up the road! Always a day late...

But we did have time to surf while we were stranded in scenic Tucumcari and I happened to look for a Trader Joe's in Albuquerque and it turns out one had just opened there two weeks before. So we went on a shopping spree. And since we were driving a big SUV, we had plenty of room to stock up on goodies. I hoarded five bags of Snap Pea Crisps, or as I call them, nature's Cheetos, which may or may not all be gone now. I swear, we lost a few bags in the car or something on the way home.

But the next morning we were off and even stopped by the coolest little winery between Albuquerque and Durango.

It was the Ponderosa Winery in Jemez and the guy there (the Kenny Rogers lookalike I'm cheesin' it up with in the top pic) couldn't have been nicer or more knowledgeable. Really, he was so nice. So were his seven dogs.

We drove a little ways down the road and saw this cool little church. There's more info about the church and the winery on this site.

The second day we were there, we decided to drive up north of Durango to a little mountain town past Silverton called Ouray. There were a bunch of neat little shops and stuff, and the best little chocolate shop called Mouse's that had some of the best truffles I've ever had.

Then on the way back we saw (when this nice biker pointed them out) that we had just passed several big horned sheep. So we turned around and went back and they crossed the road and this one just climbed up a rock and posed for me. At one point, I was about 5 feet away from him and I subconsciosly started searching my brain for any random show I might have seen on the Discovery Channel about when Mountain Goats Attack. I luckily averted any dangerous sheep mauling.

Above are some scenery shots from the drive back to Durango.

We got up on Saturday and took a ride on the Durango Silverton Narrow Guage Railroad. It was a neat experience (for about 30 minutes.) It ended up taking 5 hours to get halfway to Silverton and back. I would highly recommend it if you like to sit on your butt bouncing around for 5 hours while cruising by at about 5 miles per hour. We did see some amazing scenery...
After bouncing around for 5 hours, we headed to this really cool store called Yarn. They had a great selection of yarn and books and the neatest little tea bar. I left with lots of tea. Good stuff.
Didn't get to do some of the stuff we wanted, though, like visit Trimble Hot Springs that our hotel was just a few miles away from. Or this neat little store called Honeyville (when we checked out the website on the way home, we were kicking ourselves.) They sold meade, for pete's sake!
Then we headed home. The ride home was much less eventful. But we drove the whole way (about 12 hours) and it seemed so much longer. And the ever-prepared road-trippers that we are, we forgot to bring any CDs. How is it no matter where you are and what kind of crappy reception you get, there is always a golden oldies and classic country station?

All in all, it was a pretty fun trip.