Ouray & Durango – Babymoon! & Second Maternity Photo Shoot

Ever heard of a Babymoon? In a sense it’s like a honeymoon, but it’s a getaway or time spent together before the baby arrives, since we know things will get crazy busy then! We spent our Babymoon in Ouray and Durango, Colorado.

We added a few days onto a weekend and headed out to Ouray. Ouray is just beautiful. The town feels like it is just nestled in among the mountains. We stayed at a cute place called the Ouray Victorian Inn from which we could walk around town, check out some of the restaurants (O’Brien’s Pub and Grill, Cavallo’s Restaurant, Ouray Brewery) as well as a chocolate / coffee shop (Mouse’s Chocolates & Coffee), mmm.

We’d love to go back sometime when the ice climbing park is in full swing, and even get out on the ice ourselves, but since it was out of season we just wandered around and took a look. It’s pretty impressive the space they have for constructing the frozen climbing areas, with water spouts all along the top of the cliff faces.

Nearby there’s also the Box Canyon Park and waterfall. There is an easy trail that takes you along a walkway into the quartite canyon to the end to the 285 foot waterfall. Because the canyon is narrow and the waterfall has carved its way through the rock, it made us think a lot about the Trümmelbach Falls in Switzerland. There was also a path that takes you up to the canyon rim where you can walk over a bridge and look down at the river, as well as walk through a tunnel that would let you continue outside of the park onto a longer hike. This park is definitely worth checking out. We really enjoyed it.

After a few days we went on to Durango by driving the Million Dollar Highway which was incredibly scenic. We really liked Durango. We stayed downtown in the historic Strater Hotel and there just so happened to be a Bluegrass Festival in town and a lot of the musicians were also staying in our hotel. So we were greeted with great music any time we wandered in and out of the lobby as they had impromptu jams going on all day long. It was neat to walk around downtown, and we checked out local restaurants such as Fired Up Pizzeria, Carver Brewing Company, Steamworks Brewing Company, and Durango Coffee Company.

Durango was a great launching point to go see some of the things in the area like Four Corners Monument, which is on Navajo Nation land and is the intersection of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.

It is also incredibly close to Mesa Verde National Park where we spent a day exploring the ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings. So neat!!

While we were in Durango and Mesa Verde we also took some more maternity photos: