Good Week In Durango

 

Although we only planned to spend 2 or 3 nights at La Plata County Fairgrounds in Durango, CO, we ended up extending and stayed 6 nights. It isn’t that the RV park is anything special, in fact far from it, but we loved the location and ability to walk and ride our bikes just about everywhere. We only drove the car once the entire time we were here because we needed to do a major grocery run.

The RV lot is next to the busy maintenance building and across from the horse arena.

At least the sites are very wide so you’re not right on top of the neighbors.

The Animas River trail, which starts directly behind the fairgrounds, runs for 7 paved miles along the river. We rode the entire trail a couple times, a very pleasant and scenic ride.

One of the many bridges we crossed on the trail.

If you don’t mind walking it’s about a mile and a half to downtown, a half mile to a very nice City Market, and a Walgreen’s is right across the road, where we got flu shots and a shingles vaccine for me. We also walked downtown for dinner a couple times and to the Saturday farmer’s market.

We always like cities with rivers running through them.

Jim was looking through his health insurance benefits last week and noticed it included membership to Silver Sneakers. I guess if he saw this last year when he first got his Medicare supplement he didn’t realize what it was, but it gives him free access to fitness centers all across the country. Just so happens the Durango Recreation Center, right next door to the fairgrounds, is on the list, so we visited it three times this past week.

What a wonderful complex! State of the art fitness equipment, 2 swimming pools, one just for children, a climbing wall, racquetball courts, exercise classes, air hockey, pool and ping pong tables. After working out we played some serious ping pong and air hockey. I let Jim win, of course. It cost me $4.50 per visit, a real bargain ($6 if you’re under 60).

We did a lot of hiking when we visited Durango in 2012, so this time we didn’t go for a single hike the entire week, which was a nice change of pace. We’ve decided Durango would be a great place to live, but so do a lot of other people, which translates into very high housing prices.

But enough city living. Today we’re heading back to the forest.