Ouray

Back road to Ouray

Drove a county road down to Ouray today.  We'd driven through it many, many years ago.  Cute town...much more likable to me than Telluride.  Very down to earth.

Ouray, Colorado

The drive on the County Road was great...no traffic and beautiful scenes.  We did have a very interesting thing (more like wierd) happen.  We stopped in Ridgway for gas and Ronnie went inside...came back to jeep and we proceeded to find the CR to drive... Somewhere along the way, he stopped to talk to Mother Nature and when he got back into the car, he said, "Oh, you dropped your ring."  Then, "This isn't your  ring, is it?".  He picked a ring up from the floorboard on his side of the car.  We have NO clue where it came from and can only guess.  Our guess is that it got hung up on the tread of  his shoe and he carried it to the jeep with him at some point, either the gas station or at the stop on the way.  But that is so unlikely!   So strange.  It fits (lol) and hasn't turned green on me.  It's stamped with Sterling but don't know if the diamond is real or not.  Will take it to the jeweler when I get home. It's a beautiful solitaire.

Ouray must be famous for ice climbing.  There is an area that they actually put water on for ice climbers between these two cliffs....doesn't sound like fun to me.











We had picked out a trail to try from Ouray, so we started out up Canyon Creek Road,  up and up and

Canyon Creek Road

around....we went several miles up the mountain; cars, jeeps, dune buggies,atvs.....coming and going.  It started raining and I began to look for turnarounds....I was so tired of hugging the sides of mountains with nothing below me....and at every switchback, we'd meet somebody.  Geez.  Then we saw a floral memorial on the edge of the road right at a switchback...straight down...accidents do happen.  You see the road disappear around the rock wall and there's  no way to see if anyone is coming.  An eye opener.

This was the turning point for me....no more.

Came back down to the Visitor's Center in Ouray, got more maps, shopped a little and left for another try at

Under an ice flow

back roads (NOT mountain climbing).  This time we headed back to Ridgway; washed the  jeep and went downtown for a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream and then headed  north of the campground for Billy Creek State Wildlife Area....it forms a loop off Hwy 550 via CR 4 and CR 2.  We took CR 4 and was fine for a little while...just what we wanted, then we hit the mountain again and it was a rocky, rough one lane road--not a sheer drop off, maybe just a slide-off, but it got to be more than we wanted, so again, we found a turnaround and came back down.  Got on 550 and went to the other end.  Perfect...wide open valleys, good roads, lookout points for viewing...and best of all, we were the only ones on the road.  Saw turkeys and two deer.l  We plan to go back late one afternoon near dark to see what we can see.  IF the mosquitoes aren't too bad....that's been the only bad thing here...so many mosquitoes and they attack at 6:30 p.m.  like clockwork.

Got back to RV about 5:30 or so and grilled burgers and I made taco soup for later in the week.  We keep expecting "monsoonal" rains  and flash flooding but it's been hot and sunny.  Cool in the mountains with an occasional rain shower.  .There is a huge black cloud coming up now so the rain may be close.

Thanks to O'Reilly Auto Parts, the jeep rearview mirror is fixed.



  And someone asked for a picture of the True Grit Cafe, where we ate a few nights ago and which is full of John Wayne memorabilia

Tomorrow, maybe on further south to Silverton.