I could get used to this place

Well, I have figured out one thing is for sure. I definitely like trees, grass, water and mountains over the desert. The desert is okay, but there is just something about seeing and hearing a river run that is so incredibly beautiful and soothing. We are now in Durango and get to actually stay in the same place for more than one night, which I realize has been harder than I thought it'd be. Let's recap how we got here...

After leaving Albuquerque, we made the trek to the Grand Canyon, which is as breathtaking as you expect it to be. It's hard not to just look at it with an open mouth and just say "Wow". We didn't have any wi-fi, so I wasn't able to update from there. We stayed in a really nice lodge that reminded me a lot of Disney with the walking trails, the shuttles and the cafeterias. We ended the day with a sunset tour of the canyon. Our guide told us that some of the rocks have been dated to 5-10 million years old. That doesn't even register to me. It really puts Creation into a whole new perspective, doesn't it? Those days mentioned in Genesis 1 were probably more like millions of years. Kind of makes you look at Eternity in a whole new way, as well.

After an awesome breakfast at the El Tovar hotel, we headed out into the most desolate part of the US I have ever been in. There was nothing to look at but rocky deserts. It was a very hard day of driving, but we finally got to Durango late yesterday afternoon. Let me just say that I love this town. Our hotel is right on the river and we have a small balcony that overlooks it. I could sit out there all day and just listen to the river flow. We are about to head out and do a 2 hour rafting adventure. The girls are a little nervous about it, but we have convinced them that it will awesome. We took an old steam engine train from Durango up to Silverton that took about 3 1/2 hours. I would recommend doing that AND getting and open car. You get to see parts of the Rocky Mountains that you would never get to see otherwise. It was absolutely beautiful. We spent 2 hours in Silverton, which is an old-timey mining town and then rode a bus back down. That only took an hour, so that was much better.

We debated staying here another day, but there is still much more we have to do and it's hard to believe we are only on Day 5 of this adventure. All the Shearons are well - mostly sniffly from the altitude and tired from the time change, but other than that, we are having a great time.

Later~