Colorado Road Trip continues

We drove from the Grand Canyon straight to Cortez, CO.  We spent the night at the Tomahawk Lodge Motel.  We looked up the cheapest motel with good reviews on TripAdvisor.  As we drove around looking for it, we found it: the one with the neon lights that read "VACANCY".

Contrary to what your first thought is, the rooms were decently clean and the owners were nice.

The next morning, we woke up early and spent most of the day at Mesa Verde National Park.

That week was unique with a few events honoring the Native Americans in the area.  

He was so cute and little!  Around 3 years old!  He actually did a dance, too.

And his older brother did a dance.

Then we drove around to see the cliff dwellings around the park.

In the late afternoon, we headed to the town of Durango.  We loved Durango!  It's just on the edge of the mountains and a beautiful river runs through the town.  We had dinner downtown at an awesome local pizza joint and finished it off with DQ mini blizzards (another regular treat on our trip).

After our hot meal and warm showers in Durango, we drove north into the San Juan National Forest.  We found this stretch of road to be incredibly picturesque: typical beautiful Colorado through the Rockies.  There were many rivers and lakes around.  We found a dirt road that lead to Molas Lake where we stopped for the night.  We set up the tent and hiked on the Colorado Trail for the day.  It was pretty chilly in the 50s.  We went off the trail for awhile in hopes of climbing to the summit of a nearby mountain (around 12,500 ft high).  We almost got to the top when we felt it was getting dangerous.  Trekking on a very steep hill with loose rocks and patches of snow made the summit not seem as important.

Can you see how steep it was?  Those are our footprints in the snow...I just kept picture myself tumbling down the mountain.  That is around the time we decided to head back down.

Such a beautiful view!

When we got back to the campsite, we just walked around the lake, collected firewood, ate dinner and made s'mores.  That night it was in the low 20s!  Good thing our sleeping bags are super warm.

The next day we got back on the same road and headed north to the tiny town of Silverton.  Population: around 500 people.  Just an old mining town in the mountains of Colorado.  Silverton has had it's fair share of old western movies filmed here.  When you walk down the (one) main street, you definitely feel like you are in an old western.  It's different than any town I've ever been to.

We kept driving and next went through the town of Ouray.  Talk about quaint little towns, this was it.  Surrounded by huge mountains with an adorable little downtown of restaurants and inns.

After the cute stretch of mountain towns, we headed straight to the Great Sand Dunes National Park.