Driving the “Million Dollar Highway”

September 9, 2007
Grand Junction, CO

Today’s adventure involved a short drive south from Grand Junction. We got a later start than we expected, but still had a nice drive. We headed south on US-50 to US-550. US-550 travels through high desert and mesas that look like the beginning of the Grand Canyon. This is actually true, since the Colorado River runs right through. The highway cuts into a valley that narrows significantly at the end, in the little town of Ouray. From Ouray to Silverton, the route is referred to as the “Million Dollar Highway” (nobody’s sure if that relates to the cost to build it or the value of the silver ore that it helped carry out). We’d originally planned to travel all the way to Durango, but made the u-turn at Silverton instead.

The weather wasn’t exactly cooperating today, but it could have been a lot worse. It was sunny and warm but a little hazy when we started out, but clouds started gathering on the horizon as we drove south. We had a few sprinkles of rain as we drove over the mountains, and temperatures dropped from the mid-80s to a low of 53°F. We climbed from ~4,500 feet to just over 11,000 feet at the summit. It would have been nice to have had a bit less cloud cover from a photo perspective, but the scenery was great just the same.

We made some notes about locations and campgrounds for a future visit, and did get a few pictures, posted at: http://picasaweb.google.com/GeorgeandGeri/DrivingTheMillionDollarHighway

Tomorrow, we’ll do a little shopping and try to find a local vet who can give us something to help Merlin and Maya Lynn. They’ve had some pretty bad itching spells, and we need to nip it in the bud before it gets any worse.

And, no trip would be complete without some technology problems, right? Tonight, the wireless router bit the dust. Well, the “wireless” part did anyway. It works fine when you’re plugged into it, but not as a WiFi device. So, tomorrow’s excursion will include finding a Best Buy or similar outlet for a new router. I thought about bringing a spare, but who knows how long one will last and if technology will pass you by while you’re hauling one more thing around with you. What a pain; at least we’re relatively near civilization. I suppose I could figure out how to run a couple of Cat-5 cables from the rear of the coach to the front…

On Tuesday, we leave for Oregon. We’ll stop overnight in southern Idaho and then spend a few days in Bend before we go to the upcoming Rally in Salem.