I love my wife because she showed great courage this week! See her Myspace comments below, as she can say it better.
Well, my friends, in the words of Lloyd Christmas "we’re there, man!" We made it into Durango last night, and then we drove into Ouray this morning. For those of you who know me well, and if you know anything at all about this part of the country, you know getting here for me was no easy feat. For those of you not familiar with either, here’s a brief history. We’ve been up here once before, 10 years ago. It was my first ever trip into any kind of mountains It is also important to know I have an extreme fear of heights. Well the last time we came, it was the very end of April/beginning of May. The day we decided to try making the trip up the mountain from Durango, it rained in Durango. Well, as we started up the mountain, it turned into snow. It is also noteworthy to say I’m scared of driving in the ice and snow. So going up the mountain, I had a serious panic attack. We got to Silverton, but there was no way I could make it the rest of the way to Ouray (which was the biggest reason Rob wanted to come up here, to see Ouray). So, this morning I woke up very anxious and hardly ate anything for breakfast. But then I kept telling myself that God is in control of my life, and whatever happened would be to His glory. So, as we started up the mountain, I put some Chris Tomlin on, which included songs like "How Great is Our God", "Indescribable" and "Holy is the Lord". Wow – taking in the view and being able to praise the God who created it all was awesome! I guess it worked, because I was not nervous AT ALL – not even when I looked out my window and saw nothing but air and a drop off! UNTIL, we went around this one curve, and coming toward us, coming into OUR LANE was a truck (an 18 wheeler, but without the rig). We had to hit the brakes and swerve to the right, which there wasn’t much of. He had to swerve to the left, and we narrowly missed each other. It did scare me, but not enough to ruin the rest of the day. The pass between Silverton and Ouray is quite winding and very narrow – but again, I was not nervous! I thank my God for allowing me to admire His great creation and giving me the peace I needed to be able to enjoy myself. We also went on a hike to a place called Box Canyon falls. There are pics on the moblog of that. It was beautiful, but again, a little scary for me. Walking across a metal, grated bridge over the river, and then down about 4 flights of stairs (stairs make me dizzy), and then back up – whew, it was quite an eventful day.
Tomorrow we’ll be headed to Telluride for a little while to check that out. I’m not sure how the roads are between here and there, but it can’t possibly be any worse than what we’ve already done. Wait – as we speak Rob told me it’s 47 miles from here, and a 1 hour drive. By contrast, it’s only 67 miles from Durango, and a 2 hour drive (because you have to drive SLOW), so that tells me the speed limits are higher between here and there, which means it shouldn’t be bad at all. We may be riding a Gondola, which will again test my fear, but I’ve done that before, too, so I think I’ll be good. We’ve been told that the 4th of July in Ouray is spectacular, so we’re really looking forward to tomorrow night.
Well, that’s about it. Just one other thing, they are having record heat here – I think it was over 90 today, and the hotel does NOT have A/C – again, for those who know me well, that is not going over very well for me. But it’s supposed to cool down tonight and be about 10 degrees cooler tomorrow. It rarely gets over about 78 degrees here – it’s just my luck we would catch it on a record setting day!
Grace Breaks 