It seems unbelievable, but this will be our last week of our summer "work adventure". Time has zipped by and we have many fond memories of our time here. We have met many friends and seen too many beautiful sites that I cannot possibly show you pictures of in this little space.
We had a birthday/going away pot luck last week in the cafeteria with the staff and workampers. It was Barbara's birthday and it gave us all an opportunity to let our hair down and relax. These are the members of our workamper crew at the end of the season. From left to right - Bill, me, Ronnie, Lousie (Ronnie's wife), Bob, Carol (Bill's wife - in the middle), Barbara (the birthday girl) Jamie and Eric (our managers - in front). Of course, I also had to get a picture of the whole summer staff in. Reed (sitting on Jamie's lap, was head of maintenance, Jay (next to Eric - our computer expert and jack of all trades), Parker behind Jay - worked in the store/registration and also came to my rescue and helped me if I was swamped in the afternoon), Kay and Susan are also tucked in there - they also worked in the office/store/registration. A fun time was had by all. After devouring lots of good food and drinks, of course, Reed played the guitar and sang a few oldies songs. That will probably be our last big get together before we all head our separate ways. We could not have asked for a more wonderful group to work with our first time workamping. We will miss them all and hope our paths will cross again sometime down the road.
We had been wanting to take the narrow gage train ride from Durango to Silverton all summer and Alec (one of the young kids who worked full time this summer and has been working after school and weekends volunteered to "baby sit" Dharma so that we could finally go. He is a great kid and he loves Dharma and she is really good with him. We headed out on cool Sunday morning, leaving Dharma "to go to work" with Alec, while he worked. We decided to take the bus to Silverton and the train back, since the train ride was 3 hours one way. We headed to the train station on a somewhat cloudy morning and caught the bus. The driver was wonderful and described the scenery on the way up to Silverton. We finally saw some of the mountains on the way up that the cabins at the resort were named for. It was wonderful to attach a name to the mountains.
Did I say it was cool when we left Durango! Well when we got off the train in Silverton it was down right cold and I do mean cold! I had a heavy sweater on to start and ended up putting on 2 jackets on top of the sweater. I'll admit I was a wimp - it's that Arizona blood. They had actually had some snow flurries the day before. You can see some fresh snow on the mountain in the background. The population of Silverton is approximately 800 in the summer and 400 in the winter. The main street is paved, but all the side streets are dirt. It is an old Victorian mining town and they are trying to preserve the Victorian homes. We had hoped to catch the Aspens changing color but were a week too early. We had lunch at the Handlebar restaurant and then wandered around the town until it was time for our
train to leave. The train pulls right into town and stops in the middle of the road and then backs up and turns around for loading and heading back to Durango. The area on the mountain behind the train is the result of avalanches in the winter. One year the avalanche actually came down into the town. The train has both closed cars and open cars. We elected to ride in an open car so that we could see more and take pictures on the way back. At first we thought that was a major mistake, because as we were all boarding for the ride back it started to rain and hail and the wind was blowing - it was freezing. We thought we had made a BIG mistake, however, the brake man told us - as he was wiping the rain and hail off the seats - that it would be better as soon as the train started moving and the cars were in a different direction. We were a little doubtful - as we huddled shivering - but he was right. As we headed out of town, the sun came out, the rain stopped and we were on our way. We managed to get a little bit of the Aspen's on the right corner of the picture. We took a lot of pictures on the way back - too numerous to include in the blog. Needless to say it was a magnificent trip back. The train ride lends a whole new perspective to the scenery. Where the road is at a high elevation, the train follows the Anamis River and is at the base of the mountains. It is absolutely amazing how insignificant the height of the mountains makes you feel. We stopped along the way back three times; once to load water, once to pick up hikers who had been camping in the area for a week and once at Rockwood to let off passengers on the way back to Durango. As we left Silverton and headed back to Durango, the temperature got progressively warmer and the sun peeked through the clouds making the trip back very enjoyable. We spent the 3 hour trip back standing, moving from one side of the car to the other taking pictures and absorbing all the wonderful scenery. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I thoroughly enjoyed. We left Durango at 9am and arrived back in Durango at 6pm. It was a long day but well worth it. We saw so much and learned so much about the area. We were probably a week too early to see the leaves at their peak, but we did manage to see some of the color changes. As we passed the resort, we could see that the oaks are starting to change now on Missionary Ridge. Before you know it winter will be here in the mountains and there will be snow on the ground. By then we will be back in sunny Arizona, and probably wishing we were in the cool pines.