A lot of people have recommended the Durango to Silverton Historic Narrow Gauge Train ride. Chad first suggested it only a few days after we arrived here at Four Corners. It sounded fun but I didn’t think it would be fun enough to justify the price so I didn’t really want to do it. Then people at church and work started asking if we had done the train ride out of Durango yet. They all strongly suggested it so we looked again. Chad found a coupon on line that was up to two kids free and three and under are free so we only had to pay for the two adult tickets and that made it doable. Since it was a big, exciting, all day outing we planned it to celebrate Chad’s birthday.
To get to the train station we were up at six and out of the house. Grabbing a few jackets just in case we ate breakfast on the way and got there just in time to board.
We chose an open air gondola where we were facing out as we had heard it would be a very scenic trip.
The train takes you through a canyon that is shared with the Animas river which looks like one huge rapid some of which are class 5.
The little town of Rockwood is famous for being the location of a Butch Cassidy film.
At times the cliff walls are only inches away from the windows of the gondola, and on the other side of the train there are only inches between the edge of the car and the drop off way down to the river below. This is my favorite picture of our birthday boy.
We had cooled embers and soot all over us.
There were a ton of little waterfalls. Both Hannah and Eve took short naps towards the end of the 3.75 hrs it took to get to Silverton.
The snow tipped mountains were beautiful. One we had passed was Mt. Garfield (I saw no orange or black stripes on it but it may have looked a little presidential). Silverton Colorado is an old mining town it now is mostly supported by tourism. They have a population of 2000 residence in the summer and 600 in the winter. Even in the winter it is more populated than the town I grew up in. It was quaint and we enjoyed the historic buildings.
Check out the elevation!
Eve enjoyed picking dandelions and then giving them to everyone she met one at a time. aTFRggggThe recipients loved it.
We had two hours in Silverton one was spent getting and eating lunch and the other hour was not nearly enough to see the rest of the town but we sure did enjoy what we did see.
We got back in the train at 1:35 and it didn’t take too long until Caleb was out.
We saw the sites on the other side of the train on the way home and it was very scenic. But 7.5 hrs on an open air gondola may have been a touch too much as we were feeling a little sick from the fumes by the time we made it back into Durango. I still feel like it was better than the closed cars as they didn’t have very much air movement and were a little too stuffy for me.
After the ride was over we stopped in at the Durango Train Museum.
Sushi from City Market for dinner and the hour + drive home and we are all already tucked into bed we are worn out from a loooong day of fun and excitement.
Owens Endeavors 
Soo love these pictures. They are priceless