Day 9 - Cold Snow, Hot Springs, & New Mexico

Ouray, Colorado to Cortez, Colorado (via New Mexico)

Long story short, I missed getting reservations for a tour at Mesa Verde for this afternoon, so we ended up with a "free" day. When we left the hotel this morning, we weren't certain exactly what we would do, but it turned out to be a fun day. On another note, it was in the 50s in Ouray this morning and the 90s in New Mexico. The picture above is from Pinkerton Hot Springs.

Million Dollar Highway

Waterfalls and mountain views with sharp drop offs by the road... Million Dollar Highway did not disappoint. It was beautiful and the pictures don't do it justice. The rest of the photos from this drive are in my Colorado - Random album.

Sites While Driving in Colorado

We finally saw a marmot! The kids were excited. Fun fact: The marmots we saw in Alaska were gray but this one was brown.

The kids were dying to see some more snow, so we let them get out here and have yet another snowball fight. Another family stopped at the same time from Jacksonville. Their kids were also excited to play in the snow.

I think the highlight of the day was Pinkerton Hot Springs. We had no idea this was here until we drove by it and David asked, "what was that?" So we turned around and went back and I'm so glad we did. It was really more of a warm spring but the formations were very pretty. There was even a guy relaxing in the pool at the bottom of the formation. I added the rest of these pictures (and a few videos) to the Colorado - Random album.

Serious Texas Bar-B-Q

I'm not one to post pics of food very often, but this place was so good. If you're ever in Durango, Colorado, we highly recommend Serious Texas Bar-B-Q. Isaiah said the nachos were "better than pizza" which is his favorite food. I had a Texas Taco, which is pulled pork with cheesy potatoes in a tortilla. 

The Powerhouse (Children's Museum)

I am so glad we bought a MOSH membership before the trip. This is maybe the 3rd or 4th museum we have gone to for free. It has really given us a cheap way for the kids to take a break from sight seeing and riding in the car. They loved this "marble track" that they could design. It was a small museum, but it was perfect for the hour and a half or so we had.

Morse code station at the museum. I think this was Hannah's favorite exhibit.

This was too funny not to take a pic of it... science museum problems.

New Mexico

The scenery changed very quickly. Welcome to New Mexico! There were many of these castle like formations. Some of them were just across the border as we drove back into Colorado. They are all in my New Mexico album (despite a few being in Colorado).

We had to grab at least a few geocaches in New Mexico... to prove we've been here :-) This one was pretty cool.

Ship Rock was very cool. It was well worth the drive to the middle of nowhere down a few "Indian Service Routes"! These are very unique lava formations. To see more pictures from New Mexico, check out my New Mexico album.

Back to Colorado

Since we didn't picnic for lunch, we decided to picnic for dinner. No one felt like going out, so we picnicked in the hotel room :) We also have an early morning tomorrow and a long day (with an extra hour even).

We have now been through 9 states and driven just over 3,000 miles this trip! 

We will swap into Mountain Standard Time tomorrow (which is the same as Pacific Daylight Time), so we will be 3 hours behind home time starting tomorrow.