Coming down from Wolf Creek Pass we came into the glorious green glacial value of the upper San Juan, with lush fields along the river where cattle graze. After a half hour one comes into Pagosa Springs, known affectionately by locals as "Pagosa." It is home to a famous hot springs. We stayed there a couple years ago.
It's a nice town, and it seems to get more popular with each passing year. The strip of restaurants as one comes into town from the east seemed far busier than we had remembered from our previous stay a couple years back. Traffic was correspondingly more backed up.
Having no reason to stop, we went straight through town and made our way past the golf courses and resorts on the west side of town, and an hour later we were approaching Durango. We made a detour there to check out a new subdivision on the outskirts of town. We have put Durango on our list of possible relocations for us next year. Unfortunately the real estate market, both for buying and renting, is extremely tight. Neither of us particularly liked the subdivision, including the apartment complex there, which is one of the only decent places with availability. It reminded me too much of what I dislike about our neighborhood here in Scottsdale. I wouldn't like living there.
Our next destination was much more inviting. For dinner, Ginger had wanted to stop in the little town of Mancos, which is between Durango and Cortez, which was our destination for the night. Mancos is located as one finally comes out of the mountains and the national forest, into an arid agricultural valley near Mesa Verde.
I had passed it many times, thinking it consisted only of the businesses along the highway, but it turns out there is an actual little town if one detours off the highway. Ginger navigated the streets to the cidery she had located on line, where one can buy locally made cider as dine from the food trucks.
It was a very lively scene. It felt like the whole town was there, drinking and eating on the wonderful balcony along the river. The town seemed to be in the middle balance between an old ranching and farming town, and also a new-wave "tie-dye town."
It's funny that in the past, I would have felt more at home with the "tie-dye" people than the old ranchers, but now it is the reverse. Part of is that while we went inside to order our cider (which lets one peek at the cider facilities in their warehouse), we stood behind a woman with turquoise hair whose face was bound up in a mask while she gave her order. I have nothing against someone who wants to wear a mask, but in this setting, with no one else wearing one, and the fact that we were barely indoors at all (since the walls of the building were opened up to the outside), it felt more like a political statement. I can only assume that she is the kind of person who not only wants to wear to wear a mask, but she wants me to wear one. Moreover she probably wants me to be forced to wear one, if she could arrange it.
It's this last thing---that we should all be forced to do it---that has really spoiled me to the tie dye people. So much political drama playing out, even in the little hamlet of Mancos, as we try to order our cider and eat our slices of pizza in the beautiful August evening of Southwestern Colorado.
I hate this kind of drama. I hate the estrangement with people I feel from this. I hate that they won't leave me alone but want me to obey their rules. How did tie dye come to be about forcing people to follow thei rules?
Thankfully the cider was magnificent. We drank ours while sitting next to an elderly couple that looked like they had arrived in a mud spattered pick up truck. Next to them was a vending machine that sold locally made art.
I could live in Mancos, perhaps. So long as the balance between the cowboys and the tie-dyes stays where it is .
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