Durango and Beyond, June 2025

We wound our way -- well, no winding -- sort of stair-stepped a route back to Durango.  Needed to see Matt and Katy, take care of our not-so-tiny-tiny house and its very big garden, and play with some of our Durango friends.  

The most important thing that happened in our family during this time surely did involve friends -- not only  our church congregation in Durango, but across the continent. A legion of folks were sending prayers, loving thoughts, and vibes into the universe on behalf of our eldest son John and his wife Georgia. John and Georgia were caught in the  fighting between Israel and Iran just as they were leaving Israel for their next Foreign Service Post.  It was a time of bomb shelters for them and worry for us.  After about a week they did 'get out', although leaving their sweet puppy behind.   He finally caught up with them a couple of weeks later and they are all now safely at their next post.  Whew!  Love a good ending.

 

And there was fun to be had as well.

FoxFire Farms Winery:   Our kind friend Sue drove us to close-by Ignacio, CO, capital of the Southern Ute Nation, for our favorite Friday Nights at FoxFire Farms Winery. This centennial farm provides the music and we tote along a picnic, lawn chairs,  and relax  on their lawn. Big kids play soccer behind the stage, and the little ones run through the crowd.  Adults chit chat over a glass of wine (or not).

Telluride Balloon Festival -- Telluride is a popular Colorado town a couple hours drive into the San Juan mountain (yes, part of the Rockies).  It was a silver mining town but because of its rugged terrain and the depletion of silver, it has become of very popular ski town. So popular in fact that it ran out of room to expand, so it built a new town, a little farther up the mountain.  Very modern.  The town (s?) provides free public transportation between the two in the form of a Gondola.

 The festival featured a balloon glow on Saturday night, and then the fun of helping the vendors roll up  giant balloons and  put them away after they didn't fly anywhere on Sunday morning. About those mountains... wind direction is critical to keep the balloons from hitting them.  But there are mountains all around.  Perhaps if the wind direction was a straight-UP vector it would have been doable.  Still lots of fun.

Here's Sue, who not only told us about the balloon festival, but camped right along side us.  She  also told us about the locations of waterfalls, lakes, etc., and a sweet, riverside  Mexican restaurant on the Delores River for burritos on our way back to Durango.  Casual, outdoor dining like this is our favorite.

 

We don't know this fellow, but did agree with his sign at The No Kings March.  There was a very good turnout in Durango that day, with no issues. We were proud and hopeful.  

Since then our hearts have been broken by our Supreme Court and our Congress.  They have effectively crowned a dictator despite all the protests.  Our motto has become "We Show Up". Just tell us where and we'll be there.  Meanwhile:....

Our last weekend in Durango was, well, not in Durango.  We snuck off for a weekend with Michael and William at the Grand Canyon.  It was partly a celebration of the end of William's broken leg ordeal.  Still some musculature to strengthen, but the rods of his internal (intramedullary) 'cast' have been surgically removed, and he's walking, riding his bike, playing like any 11-year-old boy would do.  Glad that the almost a year-long ordeal is over for him and his parents.

On the Canyon rim -- climbing a weather-worn tree!  Showing off the scenery, and taking a selfie.

  

With the sun shining in through the Grand Canyon Train Window, William willingly participated in a staged train robbery as the train made its way back from the Grand Canyon to Williams, AZ. 

Our tickets included meals in the Fred Harvey House in Williams, AZ.  Don't eat there -- It is a buffet and the food is awful. (We've eaten at other, real, Fred Harvey Houses and had spectacular meals, particularly the one in Winslow, Az)

William and Michael returned to Arizona, but we steered Baby towards Sacramento for the beginning of Cramp Camp, 2025, two weeks later.  She chugged through Nevada, up and down mountain range after mountain range.  Who knew all those mountains were even in Nevada?   We did find it true that Nevada has the loneliest roads in America, but a couple of things along the way were pretty nifty: 

Great Basin National Park

We found Lehman Caves in Great Basin.  These pretty much look like every other cave we've toured, except they are marble.  Marble caves! How nifty is that?

A Cave Shield formation.  Evidently very rare in most caves, these are all over Lehman caves  They are like an Oreo, with a top and a bottom plate and a thin space between where  water drips from the middle (See the black arrows at the top). ..... so can we say we've seen Marble Oreos? 

Meet the senior citizen of the pine world: ~4500 years old,  this is a Bristlecone pine.  4,500 years old!!!!  (This is an Internet pic from Brittanica).  Great Basin has groves of them.  Like human senior citizens, not the prettiest trees, but seemingly full of the wisdom of the ages. 

Two More Volksmarches:  Carson City, NV, & Sacramento, CA (#40 & 41)

Carson City, NV.  So many trees on the capitol grounds that it was hard to get any pics, but this is the front door.   The dome is actually silver-colored, and we thought it was actually silver, given the Comstock lode.  But it turns out that real silver is too heavy so that thing is actually fiber glass.   A little disappointing! 

We found Carson City to be a delightful city, active downtown, lovely homes, and very walkable. 

California's capitol.  Very large, as you'd expect.  Beautiful grounds, but being -- what's the word here? -- upgraded -- by a very large construction project.  And we walked this walk on the 4th of July, so the building wasn't open.  

We found Sacramento in need of a street cleaner. And the first mile and a half of the walk consisted of long stretches along train tracks, etc.  It did seem to be more of a poorly planned Volksmarch than a not-nice city.  Later we drove around Sacramento and found lovely neighborhoods, and nifty places. We'd go back! 

We did find the Sacramento Airport a nice one!  That's because we found William there and so GrampCamp 2025 begins.   Hopefully our next few posts will be written by our annual guest-contributor, our grandson, William! 

WOYAYA