Durango!

This past weekend, Zach and I were blessed with the opportunity to spend some time in Durango. Zach had been before for quick snowboarding trips, but I had never been. It was beautiful!

(In front of the hotel.)

Our hotel, which we lovingly (?) referred to as "ghetto fabulous", was a constant source of amusement. When we first walked up to our room, we were afraid they had accidentally booked us in a meeting room. It had double doors...with huge pains of glass! There were curtains, of course, but you had to arrange them just so in order to prevent a peep show. We were on the 3rd floor, and we paid extra for a room that had an outdoor balcony. Our (or MY) plan was that we could sit out there in the mornings with warm coffee and enjoy the scenery. Rather than overlooking the mountain and river, though, it turns out our balcony looked right over the stairwell. We couldn't see a thing. Except for the stairwell, that is. So, we really only used the balcony to dry out our wet/muddy clothes. It also had some other "fun" quirks. For instance, I was excited to see a huge jetted tub in our bathroom and I gave that a try on our second night. It was nice, but you couldn't stay in for long. The jets were so high powered that they made my teeth chatter the whole time! Also, we noticed that the snack machine next to the elevator had a very polite note from management informing guests that all odd numbers were currently not working. So, if you wanted to select D6 for Cheetos you'd hit the jackpot. But if you were hankering for the Hershey bar at E7, you were plumb out of luck. Ha!

The hotel was downtown, so we spent lots of time wondering the streets and peeking in all the fun little shops. There was no shortage of things to see and do. Bike shops, art galleries, used book stores, pubs and fun restaurants, amazing architecture and beautiful residential areas. It was great!

On the first night, we had pizza from a place that Zach had visited once before. He remembered that it was good, but didn't remember exactly how large the slices were. Our lack of information quickly turned to embarrassment when we realized we ordered enough pizza to feed a small army. Oh well. I can't think of anything better than leftover pizza.

On Saturday, we rented a mountain bike for me and hit the trail. That's right, folks. I gave it a shot. If I were optimistic, I'd say I was able to ride about 50% of the trail. That's probably a gross overstatement, though. It felt like I had to start and stop about a million times. I rode whenever I was remotely comfortable/confident on the trail. There were some spots, though, where I definitely respected my limits. It was my first time and there was no way I was ready to go bouncing over big rocks or flying down steep drops. (I'm sure Zach would tell you that we never even encountered any BIG rocks or STEEP drops, but I maintain that that's all in the eye of the beholder.) Anyways, the ride was quite an adventure. All in all, I managed to finish the ride with only one episode of almost throwing up, one episode of almost crashing and only one episode of almost hyperventilating. The (almost) crash wasn't anything super spectacular. But, I do have an amazing battle wound to show for it. Unfortunately, it's in a rather private spot, so I won't be able to show it off. All I know is that God, in His infinite wisdom, probably never intended for his creation to participate in a sport in which their tender nethers were quite so close to such a hard pole. Ouch.

(From the trail...

...beautiful!

Notice the ominous sky...)

It wasn't long after we'd stopped to consider whether we were ready to turn back when it started to sprinkle. Within a minute, the sprinkle turned to an outright downpour, hail included. Before long, the top two inches of dirt had turned into sticky, slippery sludge. Our tires looked like they were about 6 inches wide and we couldn't even ride. Zach tried a few times, but he was pretty sure his back wheel wasn't even spinning. We had to walk the bikes most of the way back. The very end of the trail was pretty rocky, so we were finally able to ride again, but it was slick! It rained/hailed the entire way back. But, we finished in style - splattered (actually, coated) with mud, soaked to the bone and happy as can be! Besides the minor hiccups, Zach and I both agree that the bike ride was our favorite part of the whole trip. It was quite an adventure!


Thank you to mom/dad and Anna/Justin for watching the boys so we could get away. It was amazing! We came back relaxed and refreshed. A little bruised, but completely happy!