CO Vacation Part 3

As we left the Aspen/Carbondale area we headed southwest towards Telluride.  Since this vacation was about exploring we were pretty set on not taking the interstate routes and sticking to state highways through the mountains even though it may take a little longer.  The drive was beautiful and we stumbled upon some interesting parts of our lovely state.  One surprising feature that I, unfortunately, did not get photos of was an enormous coal mine nestled right between the mountains.  I'm talking giant.  The coal mounds appeared to be mountains themselves.  It was interesting to see the modern day equivelent of coal mines.

Continuing our drive we accidently found another lovely surprise, Colorado wine country!  I saw a sign for a vineyard and excitedely said "Oh can we stop!!"  This being a roadtrip the answer was, of course, yes!  We drove up a gravel, curvy, mountain road to a little vineyard called Stone Cellars.  And there it was!  The owner met us in the parking lot to greet us and offered us a tour of the vineyards and a tasting.  The wines were lovely and even more delicious since we could see the grapes that contributed to it.

There were actually quite a few other wineries right in that area (which is near Paonia, CO).  Since we were driving we only stopped at this one but I could definitely see spending a weekend here to visit more. 

The scenery just seemed to get better and better as we headed to our next destination.  Unfortunately it was rather hazy due to the massive wildfires in neighboring states so I'm sure the views would have been even better on a clear day.

This was the only leg of our trip that we didn't have reservations so we consulted our camping book and choose a campground about 10 miles outside of Telluride and were pleasantly surprised by the walk-in site that we stumbled upon with an unhindered view of the Matterhorn mountains.  

It was beautiful spot to say the least and recharged us after a long day of driving and other activities.  We were more than happy to build a campfire, have dinner, and enjoy some adult beverages by the fire and recharge for the next day's adventures.