Vacationing in Durango and Silverton

We spent a few days vacationing in the Durango, Colorado area this week with family. We stayed up at the Durango Mountain Resort in a vacation rental that fit our family of 12. 

View of a little creek outside our rental balcony

The area is absolutely beautiful, located in the San Juan Mountains with the Animas River running through the valley that was formed by a long mountain glacier. The Durango valley is surrounded by tilting layers of sedimentary rock formed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic periods (570-65 million years ago), representing episodes of deposition and retreat of ancient seas. Sandstone and shales have a reddish tint to them in places. All this is rested on the granite bedrock (1700 million years ago).

Sedimentary Rocks

We explored Downtown Durango on a couple of different days. Downtown has a lot of cute shops and good restaurants, including Steamworks Brew Pub (try the Lizard Head Red!), Cold Stone Creamery, Durango Coffee Company, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, and notably Ken & Sue’s, where we were spoiled with great food and service when celebrating our parents’ 50th anniversary. We tasted wine at the Four Leaves Winery and enjoyed the Pinot Noir and apple-infused Riesling the most. Lastly, we hopped on the Animas River Walk and enjoyed strolling along the river. We walked about a mile of the seven mile walkway.

Steamworks' Lizard Head Red was delicious!

Strater Hotel, Downtown Durango

Me at the Animas River

We took a day trip to Silverton, an historic mining town full of nice little shops, located at the edge of a volcanic caldera that erupted 27 million years ago. We took a tour of the “Old Hundred Gold Mine” just outside of town in Galena mountain, 1/3 mile in and 3,000 feet underground at an elevation of 12,750 feet and a temperature of about 46 degrees inside. Gold was claimed there at the turn of the century in about 1898 and was mined by various companies until the early 1970’s. Our tour guide explained the hard rock mining process and equipment used throughout the years.

 

Ready to enter the Old Hundred Mine

I'm a hard rock miner! Where's a quartz vein?

We drove the winding road from Silverton to Ouray and enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the drive, especially the Red Mountains, before driving back to the resort. The Red Mountains are a complex system of volcanic flows that have been altered due to Late Tertiary (approximately 1 million years ago) hydrothermal activity. The iron oxides are shades of red, orange, and yellow against the white and gray clays, and are absolutely beautiful.

Red Mountain #3 

On the way out of town on the drive back home we stopped at Chimney Rock National Monument, a sacred place for the Ancestral Puebloans over 1,000 years ago at the southern edge of the San Juan Mountains. On the 1/3 mile Great Kiva trail we saw an evacuated pit house and great kiva. The ruins are one of the highest elevation Ancestral Puebloan sites and is the northeastern-most Chacoan outlier. (Note: price of admission not worth it unless you do both the self-guided and tour-guided trails).

Chimney Rock

Also on the way home, we stopped at Echo Amphitheater (back in New Mexico), a favorite place to take a break on the drive and see the beautiful, colorful rocks of the box canyon. (See blog post Ghost Ranch for a description of the rocks in this formation.)

Echo Amphiteater

It was a fabulous vacation and we had so much to celebrate. The house is too quiet today now that we're back and everyone has left. I look forward to next year’s vacation with my parents and my nephew's graduation, when we'll be together again.

Ozark Mountain Daredevils

Many years ago when I was young, I used to listen to all kinds of great music with my dad. Today I think of the band, “The Ozark Mountain Daredevils”. Anyone heard of them? I honestly cannot think of a song that they sang at this time (although my dad could probably hum a chorus and I’d remember immediately). What made me think of this 1970’s band (yes, I’m dating myself) is that my family of five plus my in-laws are off to become Ozark Mountain Daredevils ourselves. We’re off to Misery! Er, Ah, I mean Missouri (having to correct my 11-year-old on the pronunciation of the state we’re about to visit). We’re going to beat the heat and humidity with fun and adventure in the great Cave State, also known as the Show-Me state, entered into the union on August 10, 1821 as the 24th state. Home to such personalities as Walt Disney, Yogi Berra, T.S. Eliot, and Harry S. Truman (not to forget Mark Twain, of course).


Now when I found out that Missouri was our vacation destination about 6 months ago, I was not too sure I’d have a good time. After all, I only heard of negative things like heat, humidity, and lots of bugs, including those bugs that I have only heard of but have never seen before: chiggers and noseeums. (I made it worse by Googling “chiggers” and got even more freaked out from the photos and descriptions of the biting little freaks). But now, armed with bug spray, sunscreen, and a map to multiple cool dark caves, I’m ready to go! I should note here that it is only due to my in-law’s generosity that we are able to stay at their Time Share for free for the week. Did I mention that we’re staying smack dab in the middle of the state, about 3 hours west of St. Louis? No? Well we are going to be staying at Lake of the Ozarks, a many-fingered, 90-mile manmade lake that was made when engineers dammed up the Osage River in 1931. The Bagnell Dam is a 148 feet high concrete gravity dam and was built to generate hydroelectric power.

The Lake of the Ozarks is divided up into 4 regions

So Google and I became fast friends, yet again, as I typed in search words: “Lake of the Ozarks” and up popped a multitude of websites. The most informative was funlakevacationguide.com which provided a pdf of this summer’s vacation guide to download--a plethora of information, places to go, things to do, caves to explore.... I learned that the Lake of the Ozarks is at the edge of the Ozark Plateau that extends from southern Missouri and northern Arkansas (yes, Google helped me locate this forgotten state--it’s right below Missouri) and is nestled between the Missouri and Arkansas (just passed it here in the car!) rivers. The lake has more than 1,000 miles of meandering shoreline and based on a map, it reminds me of a fancy calligraphy-like “S”. I also learned that it is a perfect premier vacation spot for water skiers, speed boaters, jet-skiers, fishing, swimming, parasailing, and pretty much any other water sport that you can think up. Too bad we don’t participate in any water sports, coming from the dry state of New Mexico. “I only dog paddle” is the phrase that comes to mind, spoken from the eloquent Fezzik from one of my favorite movies of all time,  The Princess Bride.

One thing about Missouri really caught my attention when doing my research. I immediately perked up when I heard that one of it’s nicknames was “the Cave State”. Yes! It earns its name with more than 5,000 registered and mapped wild caves. For our family plus in-laws, there are three possible “developed” caves that we can tour: Jacob’s Cave, Bridal Cave, or the Ozark Caverns at Lake of the Ozarks State Park. This part of Missouri, the Ozark Plateau, is known for its karst topography, a geologic feature which is marked by subterranean system of caves, springs, fissures, and sinkholes within the limestone and dolomite rock of the plateau that originated in the Paleozoic seas of the Ordovician period 450 million years ago. I hope to be able to explore the many trails that wind in and out of the landscape at the state park mentioned above. And to top off our trip we plan to go visit the Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis on our last day here.True Ozark Mountain Daredevils, if I do say so myself!

End of the Year Thoughts

Today was the last day of school. I'm so glad that it is over now. I spent the day party hopping, with visiting the 2nd grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade classes as they celebrated this special day. I enjoyed bagels, cupcakes, and juice while signing yearbooks and saying goodbye. Especially to the 6th graders, who are leaving for the middle school. The promotion ceremony this morning brought tears to everyone's eyes, especially when the little boy with Down's Syndrome was given over $1,000 in donations for the companion dog his family is wanting to purchase for him. There are such generous families here who are absolutely amazing!

This year has had its ups and downs for me. The ups were full of watching extraordinary teachers do their thing and watching kids learn and accomplish amazing tasks. One 6th grade class that I spend time in has increased their math scores significantly and every one of them can write a 5-paragraph essay.  That class of kids will be so ready for their 7th grade year and it is unfortunate that their teacher will be moving on to another school next year. I hope she knows how much she'll be missed and how much our kids benefited with her there.

The downs were watching some mediocre teaching going on which failed to motivate and inspire kids to learn. I worry about those kids next year and hope that they will be able to make up for lost skills.  I also witnessed staff who just didn't seem to care, who seemed depressed, and who weren't supportive of students. That really disappointed me this year. The worst thing to happen during this last month of school was to hear about the budget cuts that had to be made due to the financial crisis. Classes are being combined, which meant teachers had to change grades (some against their wishes), and now class sizes will be larger. Some  Instructional Assistants were not rehired for next year so will have to find other positions.

My position next year will change as a result of a couple of issues: the budget crunch has less available for IA's and one of my son's will be in the 5th and 6th grade resource room. Because of the budget issue, I have only been offered a position in the afternoons instead of mornings, still part time. Because of my son's grade, I'll have to move down to the lower grades to work. I'm not sure how I feel about these changes and have told my boss that I'll be thinking about it and will get back to her.

So summer vacation has now begun! The plans this summer include a lot of camping, visiting with friends, swimming at the pool, and hiking the trails. I look forward to next weekend, when I'll get to have a "Sister's Only" visit where we'll do things that we don't get to do with our families in tow. Another highlight of my summer will be when my parents come to visit and camp with us. It'll be a great summer and I know it will be far too short!

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Neat