Now, Jim, insisted there would be no doubling back on this trip but it seems we did a lot of that. After we left Albuquerque, we headed to Durango, CO. I’d already done some research about Durango and it looked like a really nice, but touristy, sort of town that was central to a lot of the places we wanted to see. It turned out to be bigger than I thought it would be and we really didn’t do much other than eat and sleep in the town. And, we went to Walmart.
Durango had the weirdest Walmart I’ve ever seen. They were rearranging it, but definitely not in the same way that most Walmart stores are arranged. It was so bad that when we walked in, Lynne, the door greeter, handed us a map of the store. Now, we needed some pretty strange stuff, namely a really big box, bubble wrap, tape, pencils and a sketch pad, but Lynne successfully showed us where to find all but the box. She told us to go check grocery stores for that, but since we needed one that was at least 38 inches long, 30 inches wide, and 20 inches deep, that seemed unlikely. She also told us where we would find a FedEx place.
The reason we needed the wrapping stuff is that we were carrying a kid’s pedal car in the back of the car…an outgrown toy from Brandon and Dylan for Jacob, our grandson. The thing was driving me nuts on those bumpy mountain roads by rattling and clunking. We thought it might be a good idea to just ship it home rather than carry it halfway around the country. At least we THOUGHT it was a good idea to ship it until FedEx told us it would cost us $137.00 to ship it. When I talked to my brother that night, he volunteered to ship it through his company if we got it to California in one piece. We decided to wait and donate the big roll of bubble wrap to him.
The hotel in Durango, a Doubletree Hotel, seemed pretty grand on arrival. The room itself was a little tired but it was clean and had a fairly nice view of the river, rafters and kayakers. To no avail, I did make note of some casinos fairly close by, but Jim pretended (I’m pretty sure) not to hear me. He had a plan, but we won’t go there. The hotel had an insanely expensive restaurant so we headed over to a nearby buffet for dinner the first night. It wasn’t too bad, but after traveling all day, neither one of us was really very hungry. They had some great soup though.
Shower time was a disaster the next morning. The hotel had the most complicated faucet system I’ve ever seen. I swear it took me 10 minutes just to figure out how to make it work. Once I did, I proceeded to take my shower and once I had my hair all lathered up with shampoo, the water pressure dropped off. I ended up with some seriously burning eyes but finally got it rinsed out. I explained the faucet procedure to Jim after I got out and warned him about the water pressure thing. I guess I was the lucky one. He had water pressure, but he ended up having to jump out of the water four times because it kept scalding him. They promised to have it looked at while we were out for the day.
When we complained at the front desk and asked them to check the water issue, they gave us a certificate for a complimentary dinner for two in their very fancy restaurant. I get really perplexed in those kinds of eateries. I think it’s the artistic design of the food. It’s like I’m not supposed to touch the layout. It makes me tense. I ate it anyway…well except the weird squash stuff. I really didn’t like that. Jim made the few patrons in the restaurant laugh when I asked for a piece of the cheesecake to take up to the room for later. He put a cloth napkin over his arm and did a whole waiter/butler routine as he carried it up to the room for me.
They didn’t fix the water issue. We had to complain again the next morning, but they gave us half off the room for the night before. It was a nice break.
Jim’s Duck at The Doubletree in Durango, CO