Hard to believe how fast the time goes, especially when you’re hanging around home. In a twist of the common “just retired” comment: How did I ever find time to hike (bike or raft)? It’s almost summer and if it weren’t for chores, commitments and complications I’d rather be logging hours as a WIS volunteer, breaking in my new Brooks saddle, or rafting the Middle Fork.  But all play makes the responsibilities stack up, and June is the month I’ve got to knock off as much as I can, because July, August and September are already booked up.

One of the pleasures of being home is hosting Warmshowers.org cross-country cyclists and Eddy was the rider of the month so far.  He is/was a delightful South Korean who decided to traverse the US on a bike after discussing it with several students in his English as a Second Language class (in Kentucky).  Well equipped and enthusiastic, he made it from Los Angles to Durango in 17 days, including stays in Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.  He liked Durango so much he stayed over and made a quick 9-mile day hike with me on his day off.  Only comment I had for him was to put some toe-clips on the pedals because he was attempting the 3,000 mile trip in tennis shoes and pedaling flat footed.

Since we’d contracted to sell our rental house, I had to sort, move and trash items in that rental garage, which dove-tailed nicely with my purging of the equipment wall in the spare bedroom.  Between a friend’s fortuitous yard sale, the thrift shop, some give-a-ways, various dumpsters and a nephew, I’ve lightened my load considerably.  Now if I could double or triple that amount of divesture, I could fit into assisted living if they’d allow bicycles, backpacks and raft.

I did make time for a sewing project – a bike-packing frame pack – for my high school and cross-country-cycling buddy, Don Ahlert.  I’m not announcing it yet, but he’s going to cycle the Great Divide and I’m going along.  This little custom pack will fit between his top and down tubes and hold a pump and tent poles, plus a few spares for his cross-country adventure.

Luckily I was in town for a program at Rotary this last week on a local bear study with the Division of Wildlife. Evidently we are the only community in the world studying the conflicts between bears and people living in close proximity. This is a totally fascinating multi-year project that uses GPS technology to track adult female bears, all within our county.  The Division of Wildlife knows where each of the collared bears are year round, and tracks them down in their dens during winter to change the batteries and count cubs. If there was any doubt about how many bears are around our community, we now know there are at least 270 that have been trapped, tagged and released exactly where they are found.  We know for certain that drought conditions bring the bears into town and more importantly, those bears who’ve discovered town trash don’t come back to town if there is plenty of food outside of town the following year.

Soon it’ll be summer and I’ll be back outdoors.

Fun to have visitors.  We always felt that on the boat, and it’s just as fun when folks from out of the US come to visit us in Durango.  We’ve been quoted many times saying, “We get to see our ‘old familiar things’ thru fresh eyes, our visitors’ eyes”. This week’s visit by Chalong (just like it sounds ‘Cha-long’) from Trang, Thailand was almost as exciting for us as it was for her.

As many know, we have great friends in Trang, Thailand, among the Trang Cycling Club, and Chalong is the wife of TigerSong the defacto leader of all our Sunday and weekend excursions, each of the three years we’ve stayed in Trang.  TigerSong and his crew have toured us repeatedly around southern Thailand showing us sites, events and occasions that the average foreigner would never see or even notice.  We finally got to reciprocate when one of “their own” came to Durango.

Ever since learning the term “breaking the fun barrier”, I’ve used it with abandon, and once again we practiced what we preached.  Chalong only came for four days and the first day was aborted by United Airlines when her flight was delayed 18 hours due to equipment issues.  But she hit the ground like a champ when we thrust her into an open-house potluck (potlucks don’t happen in Thailand – if you can’t afford to feed everyone you invite, you just don’t invite many.  It must be a matter of ‘face’ because they do have big parties and the host provides and usually has a rented tent, tables and chairs).

Chalong is just finishing her studies for a Doctorate in English and she’d come to the states for a month of classes in San Francisco to prepare for her final exams.  We’d convinced her Durango would be a great diversion between classes and testing back in Bangkok.  The open-house was super as she got to see and talk to many folks about language, culture and her country.

The next day we drove the “million dollar highway” in search of snow, which she’s only seen in pictures.  Neither of the two passes had accessible snow left, so we motored right thru Silverton and up the Alpine Bypass to Eureka where she finally got her wish in an avalanche debris flow that had almost as many broken trees as snow.  Her smiles, laughter and joy were priceless.  As we approached historic Animas Forks town site she got lots more snow opportunities.

We picnicked in the ghost town parking lot and zipped back to Silverton where Stanna and Chalong boarded the Durango & Silverton Narrow Guage Railroad open car #20 and rode thru the Weminuche Wilderness toward Durango.

Next day was just as ambitious, because we visited Mesa Verde National Park touring both Balcony House and the Cliff Palace with another picnic lunch between tours.There was barely enough time to freshen up back in Durango, before we took in the Bar D Wrangler Chuckwagon dinner and Cowboy music show.

We took over 250 photos of her enjoying some of Durango’s highlights. Thanks Chalong, for reminding us what a wonderful place we live in.