Remember how I mentioned on day 1 that our trip could be described as ambitious? Well, our ambition has finally gotten the best of us and today we are going to skip our 8th and final national park. We had planned to check out Mesa Verde NP this morning. While this park does seem very cool with ancient and elaborate cliff dwellings, sometimes you just have to get real. Ideally, we would have driven to the visitor center last night to obtain tickets to one of the guided cliff dwelling tours for this morning. While the park is only 11 minutes from our hotel, the portion of the park with the cliff dwellings is an hour from the visitor center. Add in the 1 hour tour (or an hour of looking on our own) and the 1 hour return drive back to the park entrance and we already have a busy day considering our hotel for the night is 4 1/2 hours away.
We also wanted to check out Durango as we drove through and we wanted to get to our hotel pretty early because tonight's hotel is BUFFALO THUNDER! More on that later.
Sooooo....we decided to have a "lazy" day and just tour Durango and then head to the hotel. We did wave to Mesa Verde NP as we drove by. Maybe next time, Mesa Verde.
We got to Durango around 10AM and instantly fell in love with this charming downtown area.
We parked near the Durango-Silverton narrow gauge railroad station so we walked over to check it out. It looks like a fun thing to do if we ever come back.
Then we basically just walked up and down the main street shopping, looking, and taking silly pictures. It was still cool outside and not crowded at this hour so we had a lot of fun.
We stopped at the Strater Hotel that has been in operation since 1887.
Morgan in the lobby of the Strater Hotel.
Caleb went back in time to an age with phone booths!
Caleb and his new girlfriend.
Almost every single business in Durango had some sort of sign thanking the firefighters. There have been a few really terrible forest fires close to Durango in the past few months and the city is very appreciative of these brave men and women.
We stopped for lunch at the Balcony restaurant. As the name implies, it is on a balcony overlooking the main street. By the way, bunny ears on your little brother are hilarious.
Not a bad view for lunch!
We're on vacation so we stopped for chocolate. We have a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store in Frisco that we have never been to. But we're in the Rockies now so here we go! It turns out that this is the original location! The cashier told us that they have a big chocolate factory nearby where they make all the chocolate that is sold all over the nation.
With our bellies full, we headed on down the road. We stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom and saw some hummingbirds!
As we were waiting for Rodney come out, I saw a guy come out and get something off his bike. I told the kids that he looked like he'd been riding that bike a long way. When Rodney came out, he told us that there were 3 of these bikers and that they are on day 21 of a cross-country bike race called The Great Divide. They started in Alberta, Canada and will finish in Antelope Wells, New Mexico (over 400 miles from where we saw them). Rodney wished them luck and left them alone. He said they did not look like they were up for any chit-chat. I don't blame them!
Next stop: Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino near Santa Fe. When we were booking hotels for this trip, we looked up hotels in Santa Fe and this place popped up. It is about 30 minutes north of Santa Fe, but it looked like just what we would need at this point of the trip - a big resort pool and a fun experience. The kids have been so excited about this stop and have been asking every day "Is today Buffalo Thunder"? What a great name, by the way.
We arrived and the kids were instantly impressed at the size of this place. Rodney got us a room upgrade so we had a giant balcony overlooking the pool and a bigger room with a couch and fireplace. Fun!
When we arrived, Rodney followed our usual routine of going inside to check in and bring out a luggage cart as I gathered what we would need for the night. He came out empty-handed this time and said that this is a full-service resort so you can't just grab a cart and load your own stuff. We determined we didn't have that much and we could just carry it in ourselves rather than using the bellhop service.
Once we were settled in, we left the room to explore the place. Caleb found a buffalo head to pose with!
This is a nice resort decorated in Southwest style with lots of Native American art everywhere. We walked around the whole place, checking out the restaurants, spa, pool, and even walked through the casino. It is a big place and definitely the fanciest place these kids have ever stayed.
Soon we got down to the real attraction of this place - the pool. The kids had a great time!
Rodney and I enjoyed ourselves also!
We eventually got cleaned up and headed downstairs to the Iguana Café for dinner. It was very good and the kids were getting along so well! We like to document these rare getting-along moments.
The kids had spotted an arcade during our exploring and we told them we would stop by after dinner. Caleb checked out this giant sculpture as we waited for Rodney to get quarters.
Sadly, this was the worst arcade we've ever seen. It looked pretty good, but it turned out almost every game was broken. Caleb played a hunting game and then Rodney showed him how it is done.
They also got the basketball game to work and then we decided to get out of there. We determined that their arcade is just a kid's version of their casino - it's all designed to take your money.
When we got back to the room, the pool was all lit up and it was time for bed. Good night, Buffalo Thunder!
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