You would have to look quite a bit in this country to find a more impressive 35-mile stretch of road than highway 550 between Ouray and Silverton, CO. That, along with a beautiful late summer day, made for an incredible, pleasant and spectacular drive. Vehicles of all types kept pulling off to the side of the road to admire a particular spot.

The route was all winding up and down the sides of mountains with an occasional straight stretch between mountains. There are many extra passing lanes (though not enough!) and countless places to pull over on the side of the road to explore and/or take pictures.

Unfortunately, I did not realize that my fairly new digital camera (I am still learning how to use it, and how NOT to use it) does things without me asking and it without telling me it did it. Apparently it thought, at one point, that the light was either too dark or too bright. Thus, it switched an otherwise manual dial to a night mode. This mode adds a sort of silvery overlay to most everything. Therefore, whenever I took a mini-movie, I was (unbeknownst to me) not getting the magnificent pictures I wanted. I deleted many of them because they were unviewable. The rest I kept here but they certainly do not do justice to what I actually saw. Then again, no camera could do justice to these sights!

Enjoy...