Houston, TX to Durango, CO

keylay

Adventurer
On July 31st, my oldest son turned 8. We celebrated his birthday and then I took a long nap. By 11:30pm I was on the road with my two boys (8) and (4) and father-in-law. The roads were quiet and I drove from Houston, through Dallas and northwest on Hwy 287. This was the sunrise on August 1st near Vernon, TX.

The boys did great watching iPads and playing games in the car.

Though they were disappointed that the travel centers were closed due to COVID-19.

We got to see much of I20, Albuquerque, NM and beautiful NW New Mexico on our way to Durango.

Durango Doghworks was wonderful every morning. The boys got their chocolate doughnuts and dad got his burritos.
 
Last edited:

keylay

Adventurer
After breakfast on the 2nd, we traveled up to Silverton and stopped at Molas Pass (10,910 ft.) to take in the beautiful view.

Silverton was packed with off-road and adventure ready vehicles as well as SxS to the max. Early this morning, I heard some belt squeal and treated with belt conditioner. The noise was no longer present.

CR2 lead us out of Silverton to Animas Forks mining town (11,000+).

Just after noon, we decided to visit Engineer Pass, part of the Alpine Loop.

After some traffic jams with quads and SxS, we made a detour and hit Mineral Creek toward 550 and Ouray.
 

keylay

Adventurer
This section is where I found out Ray is deathly afraid of heights. This section has some serious drop offs and some off camber portions. He had never been offroading and his hand signals and tire placement left a lot to be desired. We had some choice words a couple times between each other. He also talked to Jesus a lot here.

After a stressful day up in the back country, I left Ray at the hotel and took my boys on a 2 mile hike above town.

We looked for bears and other wildlife, but only found trail dogs with their owners :)

Finally found a bear!

Our second day ended with a river trip on the Lower Animas River. The water was low so we pinballed between all the boulders.
 

keylay

Adventurer
On the morning of August 4th, we took a detour toward Mesa Verde National Park. Though the tours were closed, it was still neat to see the architecture of the ancient natives.

Later that day, we made our way to Rockwood Station 18 miles north of Durango. We took an out and back tour into Cascade Canyon on the Durango & Silverton train.

Beautiful San Juan National Forest

On August 5th, we left at 6:30am. I changed the route and went through Pagosa Springs, CO, a place I'd like to explore more. We hit I-25 and dropped south into Raton, NW. From there, we took Hwy 87 into Texline, Texas.

Just after Texline, TX, my serpentine belt snapped. It turns out the squealing was from a seized idler pulley.
 

keylay

Adventurer
We saw a bunch of cars pass as we waited for our tow. Made me wonder what maintenance I should do on a vehicle this old or what vehicle i should get next since it's getting up in age.

We called 911 since we had two young kids with us and got a tow sent out. The tow driver had a mechanic ready for us and 4 hours later, new pulley and belt.

You can see in their smiles, that even a break down was part of the adventure. Our 11:30pm Houston arrival now became 4:00am on the 6th. The boys slept through most of Texas and Ray and I split the driving and did just fine.
 

NMBruce

Adventurer
Nice trip, Pagosa Springs is a really nice town. I know a great realtor :)

we got a nice snow fall the last couple of days, only about 2” in town, but Wolf Creek is reporting 38”
 

tatanka48

Active member
Nice trip, Pagosa Springs is a really nice town. I know a great realtor :)

we got a nice snow fall the last couple of days, only about 2” in town, but Wolf Creek is reporting 38

Wolf Creek is usually one of the 1st areas to open each winter IIRC from my snow skiing days
 

Forum statistics

Threads
185,538
Messages
2,875,656
Members
224,922
Latest member
Randy Towles
Top