Vacation Part 2: Silverton, Co

Jake and I went on an excursion to Silverton, Co and some ghost mining towns in the area. We booked two seats through a tour company called Mild to Wild rafting and jeep tours. We started out at the train station and they took us up to Silverton (about 50 miles away) via the "Million Dollar Highway". They named it that because of all the gold and silver mined equalled over a million dollars. Once we got to Silverton we got into these funky Austrian military vehicles that seats 8 people in the back. The other one had 6 wheels. Ours only had 4.


It was a pretty amazing drive. Great off road adventure. Jake kept making fun of me for taking so many pictures when we were bouncing so much from the rugged terrain.






I tried to do a panoramic view of the peak we stopped at.







There were tons of old mines along the mountain sides as we treked through the mountain roads.
Here is a ghost town we stopped at.





This was by far the biggest mine on the trip. I guess they are called a mill press or a mine mill. They have big steal balls that crush the stones that come up from the mine and the crushed stone bits go down a conveyor that separates them by weight. By the time it gets to the bottom you get gold, silver, or ore. A train can come up right next to it at the bottom to be loaded. The tour guide said it must have been heavily guarded.



We headed out back to town. Here is a couple of pictures of Silverton.







We ate at the Bent Elbow for lunch-the last betrothal in Silverton, now a restaurant.
Picture to come.

We didn't have time to roam around the city after we ate (dang it, I wanted to go to the Shady Lady bar/restaurant), so we headed to the train station and took a 3 1/2 hour ride back to Durango. It was a very nice ride. Jake and I rode in a gondola car and we both fell asleep to the swaying car, nice breeze and the noise of the engine.
We both got back to the motel with black specks of soot on our faces. At some points in the ride you had a rock wall to look at and you kept your faces and limbs inside the car lol!

We also got mooned a few times by groups of kids tubing down the river. :O