Hello Hello,
The last day of my Aspen trip came to last destination activity which was to ride the Durango-Silverton Railroad. This was something that came up as one of the top "things to do" when I was searching up online for things to do in Durango. This was something that I had to book ahead of time (about $100/person with discount) since the railroad timings are fixed and the tickets sell out pretty quickly. Another thing we had to decide while booking was whether we wanted to do a full day or a half day trip. The full day trip is basically a roundtrip in railroad vs. a half a day trip is one-way railroad trip and one-way bus ride. We decided for a half-day trip since full-day would have taken almost an entire day, coming back to Denver after midnight! So, doing a half-day trip would be much more preferable with 8 am train to Silverton and then bus ride back to Durango station around 1:30 pm.
To catch an 8 am train, we had to leave house by 7:15 am (30-minutes drive and 15-minutes to find parking) and in order to leave by 7:15 am, we had to get up by 6:15 am. This is where all the friends were separating in 2 groups since only half of the people were coming for the railroad. We barely got any sleep since we slept late the previous night and got up really early for this train ride.....!! We packed up the car, settled in, and got to the railroad. Unfortunately, this was not the day of sunshine and instead it decided to pour down rain, slow and steady :(. That also made the weather quite cold (I am glad that we got the economy seats instead of the open air seats). Once the train started, it had its first unplanned break, for 15-20 minutes, since there was water on the tracks. The railroad itself was about 3+ hours long, so we had plenty of time to pass :). We all played a movie guessing game while the train was going through some beautiful scenery as well as some boring spots in the forest. But, nonetheless, it was nice.
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| Durango-Silverton Railroad, Durango |
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| Durango-Silverton Railroad, Durango |
One thing I am happy about is that we only got one-way railroad ticket since coming back in the same train would have been extremely boaring and that too for 3+ hours?? Pheww...half-day trip was a good choice. Once we got to the town of Silverton, it was gorgeous! This is an extremely small town, situated right in the middle of the mountains! Due to the cold and cloudy weather, I felt like it was a part of Switzerland in Silverton :)
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| Silverton, CO |
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| Silverton, CO |
We took some pictures of the town and group photos with the train. We didn't have much time to spare since we only had about 20 minutes from the time we get off from the train to the time we need to start boarding the bus. The bus ride was only about one and half hours compared to the train ride. This worked out great for us since we saved time and (the biggest plus point), we got to see the beautiful Million Dollar Highway which has amazing views! With this, we also got to see the first snow of the season :)
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| Bus ride on Million Dollar Hwy |
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| Bus ride on Million Dollar Hwy |
We got back to the base at Durango station and soon started our journey back home (another 6-7 hours ride). We safely got home around 8 or 9 pm but that wasn't the end of the day. One of my friends and I had to go to return the rental car the same night, so from that we got back around midnight, and then, as far as I can remember I just passed out after getting home.
This wraps up my 3-day trip to 3 locations, action-packed and fun-filled, with amazing group of friends! And, it has (just like other trips) given moments to cherish for lifetime!!
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