{"id":6154,"date":"2013-09-19T14:19:23","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T18:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=6154"},"modified":"2013-09-22T18:16:25","modified_gmt":"2013-09-22T22:16:25","slug":"driving-from-moab-to-durango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=6154","title":{"rendered":"Driving From Moab to Durango"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, September 19, 2013<\/span><\/p>\n

The distance from Moab, Utah to Durango, Colorado was only 158 miles, but we wanted to take our time to drive a scenic route and stop at Mesa Verde National Park.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>High Cliffs Outside Moab<\/p>\n

We drove south along Route 191 for about 35 miles and came upon Wilson Arch. \u00a0The sun was rising behind the arch and a man stood under the huge rock formation. \u00a0Of course, we pulled over to take photographs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Man Standing Under the Arch<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Abajo Mountains West of Monticello, Utah<\/p>\n

We drove east onto Route 491 at Monticello where the land flattened out to shrub covered desert. \u00a0As we continued, the land changes to beautiful ranches with cattle grazing. \u00a0We saw the high mountains of Colorado in the distance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sign Along the Road<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Mesa Verde<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>360 Degree Views<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>One View From Park Point<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Spruce Tree House Cliff Dwelling<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Closer View of the Spruce Tree House<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>At the Tree House<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A Kiva<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Interior View<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Another View<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Amazing Place<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tourists Under the Cliff<\/p>\n

We climbed out of the Spruce Tree Cliff and slowly walked back up the path, panting all the way because of the altitude. \u00a0We stopped briefly in the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum to see the artifacts left by the Pueblos who had lived in the cliff dwellings. \u00a0Then we drove around the Mesa Top Loop Road. \u00a0We did not stop at the other sites which were open to the public because we felt they were too difficult for us. \u00a0They involved climbing ladders and crawling between rocks to reach the dwellings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Strater Hotel in Durango, Colorado<\/p>\n

It was a short drive from Mesa Verde to Durango and we arrived in time to check into out hotel before dark and walk around the Historic District.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Lobby of the 1887 Strater Hotel<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Victorian Interior<\/p>\n

We had dinner at the Diamond Belle Saloon complete with live Honky Tonk music performed by a piano player “not a player piano”, as the sign read.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Interior of the Diamond Bell Saloon<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Honky Tonk Music<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, September 19, 2013 The distance from Moab, Utah to Durango, Colorado was only 158 miles, but we wanted to take our time to drive a scenic route and stop at Mesa Verde National Park. High Cliffs Outside Moab We drove south along Route 191 for about 35 miles and came upon Wilson Arch. \u00a0The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","category-western-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6154"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6209,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154\/revisions\/6209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}