Confessions of an RVer: DURANGO SILVERTON NARROW GAUGE RAILROAD

Who goes to Durango and does NOT ride the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad? See, that's what I thought; No one does! So, even though I rode the train many years ago, DWW and Barb had never ridden it and I was anxious to ride it again.

DWW had made our reservations a long time ago. We were arriving in Durango on a Wednesday and we were suppose to ride the train on Thursday. After looking at the weather forecast, we decided we needed to change our tickets for another day if we could. We all went to the depot and the following Tuesday looked to be the best day for weather, so we changed the tickets for Tuesday. Now the only thing about waiting to Tuesday to go is that we are leaving on Wednesday. So, if the weather is bad on Tuesday, too bad, you have to go.

Sure enough, we looked at the weather forecast on Monday and it said that there was a high percentage chance of rain and the high in Silverton (train's destination) was only going to be in the mid sixties. Not the best of forecasts.

The train trip from Durango to Silverton is 3 1/2 hours long. We decided to ride the bus to Silverton and then ride the train back from Silverton to Durango. We are glad we did. We arrived at the depot and the bus picked you up and it took about 1 1/2 hour to get to Silverton. A much shorter ride than the train.

DWW and Barb had gotten a recommendation from one of their friends to eat at the Brown Bear for lunch in Silverton. About half way to Silverton, it started raining and the temperature started dropping. When we got off the bus, it was pouring down rain. We put the umbrella up and took off to try to get out of the rain and to beat the rush of people for lunch.

After lunch, we had time to walk down the street of Silverton to shop through some of their stores. The sun had come out and the weather was beautiful. We had ridden this train when our kids were little and I must say that the town of Silverton did have more to offer than it did many years ago. There were a lot more shops and restaurants throughout the town. Barb ended up buying a ring made by the Navajos at one of the shops. I ended up buying a t-shirt.

We loaded the train and took off at 1:45. We saw some beautiful scenery on our way back.

They have had so much rain that the water is muddy instead of the usual crystal blue.

Look at the beautiful blue skies

Mr. W wanted me to get a pic of the engine as we were riding along. That's not really easy to do cause you have to wait until the engine turns ahead of you and try to shoot it by sticking your camera out of the window. But, I finally got one.

There is a zip-lining place located about halfway through the ride. We stopped and picked up a couple of people who had been there. There were about 20 people harnessed and looking like they were getting ready to start the zip-line standing close to where the train stops. You could look up and see zip-lines all through the trees and area around there. I don't remember how many miles of zip-line they advertise but I do know it is about $300 a person for the day. The facilities looked really nice but that's a little expensive for me. I'm sure it was a beautiful place to zip-line and it was a great experience for them.

As we got closer to town, we started seeing more houses and "civilization". The train track went right beside a fenced area where there were horses. The horse in the pic below, ran beside the train until a fence stopped him from following along and he was neighing the whole time. Pretty cool.

They have a museum that's pretty interesting at the depot. So, when we got back, we walked through the museum. It has old cars, old train cars, a locomotive engine that you can walk through, and much, much more. It is free and actually kind of interesting. Can you tell I'm not always a museum person? It was a fun day.