If you’ve followed our blog for a while you probably know we love Durango Colorado.  We visited in the 90s and early 2000s and then had the opportunity to spend 3 Summers working for Carol and Jay at the Durango KOA.  We had 18 months over 3 years to really get to know the place and loved it.  By the end of our last season as workampers we bought a condo as an income property and investment.

Well, this Spring our renters of 4 years moved on and we found ourselves back in Durango to provide a little maintenance before our next renters.  As luck would have it, our good friends David and Kathryn had a townhouse becoming vacant just as we arrived and they offered to let us stay while we worked.  Heaven!  A beautiful home close in to town to babysit for our friends.

One of our favorite things about Durango is the Irish Emabssy Pub where they have traditional sessions every Sunday.  Our first visit this year had 16 musicians and a couple of young dancers.  It was 3 hours of good music and comradery.  See our You-Tube video…

Another favorite activity in Durango is the Saturday Farmer’s Market.  There is a community of local farmers and gardeners and lovers of fresh produce who come together each week to talk and share.  We met people from the Durango Ag. Extension office and state forest service.  We met a grower from nearby Bayfield who invited us to visit his farm.  We met a mycologist from Telluride selling home mushroom kits and talking about collecting in the wild.  And we brought home gorgeous produce!

Durango Farmers Market

And, of course, what brought us to Durango in the first place was the steam train.  The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad has been operating on the old Denver and Rio Grande tracks since  the 80s and still provides a memorable experience daily from Durango North thru the Weminuche Wilderness to the old mining town of Silverton.  The sights and smells and sounds of this very successful tourist train bring us back year after year.

2017 looks like a banner year for the D&S.  While 3 trains per day are the norm, we saw many days when a fourth train was added to accomodate the throngs of people arriving to ride.  We “chased” the train to shoot some memorable images of this classic.

Passing under US550

Crossing thru Rockwood

473 follows a manmade ledge

Climing into the San Juans

482 returning to Durango

For more of the story click on this wikipedia link…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durango_and_Silverton_Narrow_Gauge_Railroad