Joe and Helen Berry made a quick passage thru Durango this week en route to California and should be back through here in a week. We spent the first day catching up and doing a little mac’ing out.  Helen had been here visiting Rita several years back, but this was the first trip for Joe since his family vacations of his youth.  They let us show off the town by visiting an artists street fair, walking downtown thru the gauntlet of tourist shops, and driving the rim for an overlook of our compact community.

Rita and her new beau came for dinner and we recounted old times from Tarpon Springs. Joe & Helen go way back with Rita, as she was there when DejaVu was conceived behind the Tarpon house. Rita lives in Durango now, and the Berrys in Canada when they aren’t on their beautiful cat in the Bahamas.

Mexican hurricanes brought a low pressure area to the San Juan’s so we had to delay a trip to Silverton by a day, which gave Helen and Joe a chance to tour Kurt’s boat currently hauled in a local yard. The master shipwright gave Kurt lots of sage advice and tips he graciously accepted.

We wanted them to see some of our heritage homeland and past projects up in Silverton so we chanced the weather and headed north in a squall.  By the time we got to Animas Forks and the restored mining town structures, the weather was just fine.  Elevations above 11,000′ didn’t phase the the sea-level mariners a bit, and when the clouds lifted they got to see the San Juan’s famous changing of the colors with the iridescent yellow and red aspens and scrub oaks.

Joe got into photographing some of our mining and railroad history while we toured the restored buildings of Animas Forks, high above Silverton.

After a tailgate lunch on the 4Runner in the high country, we made it back just in time to catch the Silverton narrow gauge train back to Durango. Joe shot another 100 photos on the downwind run.

We sure look forward to their layover on the way back.  Stanna wants Joe to tweak the flying shuttle on her loom just a little more, and we’d like to show them another couple days of this wonderful country.  We sure enjoy it when you all visit us in our undisclosed remote location.