Day Thirty-Two: Durango (Rest Day)

We got up earlier than usual, adamant that we read our new books that we purchased from Maria’s Bookshop the day before. Before heading out for work, Geri toasted bagels and poured coffee for our poor decaffeinated souls. We rode our bikes downtown and stopped for even more coffee at Magpies before taking another tour of the city—but this time getting lost, because we didn’t have Geri there to direct us. We seemed to meet all of the characters of the town, from Tom, the quirky jewelry store clerk, to Larry, the rugged jeweler himself, to George, the unorganized book hoarder. And then, after some time walking down Main Street, we ran into the one and only: Node!

Node was in Durango for a couple of days, too. He was in search of a burger and he was going get that burger if it killed him. We walked to Steamworks, a large brewery with a top-notch menu. We paired salads and burgers with gut-busting queso dip and a couple ambers before calling it quits. But Node wasn’t done; no, he needed ice cream, too, so we went to a local creamery and then took my bike in to Durango Cyclery for a final tune up (all of the prior repairs were make-shift versions of what actually needed to be done). The guys needed a couple of hours to work on hand-fixing my wheel, so we said goodbye to Node and returned once more to Magpies, where Tom made us espresso shakes, smoothies, and even gave us half of a watermelon. Yeehaw! After the time was up, we picked up the bike and rode to the grocery store—we were cookin’ dinner!

Dinner consisted of chicken kebabs, yellow rice, roasted veggies, mangoes, kiwis, and apparently whatever else we could find at the market. We ate with Geri, who told us about how she discovered bear droppings in the backyard that day, and we lounged around the living room until Tom came home. We talked for hours, and stayed up even later with Tom, talking about fascinating subjects like space travel, the future of robots, etc., all of which he knew a whole lot more about than we did. It was one of our best nights yet, and we loved finding such wonderful conversationalists! One thing was certain: we were not ready to leave Durango.