Day 18 - Durango, Colorado, Grand Junction, Colorado

From Maureen's perspective she has found the driving (on the "wrong-side") great. One of the reasons for this is that the Americans are very courteous and forgiving drivers/A good example of this, is that at cross roads (four- way stops) the rule is, first in first out and even if there are four cars at the intersection it works well. We are not so sure that it would work so well anywhere else especially in the UK!. Also as the roads are wider than we are used to and the traffic density quite low, it makes driving stress free.

We had to leaveour cabin early in order t be able to catch up on our schedule. We drove some 2 hours
 to Durango which is set among the San Juan Mountains. This is just the place
 if you like outdoor activities especially canoeing and cycling in the summer and of course  skiing in the winter. It is also the headquarters of the Durango and Silverton tourist train operation. This remaining portion of the D&RGW narrow gauge system is very popular and transports many tourists through some spectacular inaccessible scenery to and from Silverton. These steam trains run most of the year

The turn-back point for the railroad is Silverton, a town that has retained  the look of its past-times, when it was a Zinc and Ccopper mining town and Wyatt Earp dealt cards here.  It really is like steppeing back in time when the train arrives right in the middle of the main street!

From Silverton we drove north along the "Million-Dollar Highway" through yet more spectacular Colorado scenenry to Grand Junction. Not expecting too much from this railroad town, we arrived to discover the  Thurday  farmers market which is held in Main Street from 4:00 pm - 8: pm. It had a great atmosphere and there was wonderful produce on offer, the local peaches are particularly succulent and tasty! This is set against a background of the spectacular  Colorado National Monument area (which we are looking forward to driving through tomorrow).