a full year in durango. i’ve settled in easily in this tourist mountain town. i can walk everywhere i need to go, which i love. for those few places that are a bit too far, i combine a walk with some public transit. i certainly enjoy that aspect as it means we need only a single vehicle and its associated costs. i didn’t get to do as much hiking as i would have liked this year. tendonitis being the culprit for that fact. well over a month of lost hiking to recuperation. i think i learned some lessons there: more and better training and breathing exercises — if i want to hike high mile days at high altitude.
i got a part-time seasonal job at the railroad in town, which they are attempting to morph into a full-time year round gig. i’ll have to see about that. it’s a job, simple as that, and some try to make it more. i also lost multiple days of hiking due to being called in. the one thing that i’ve learned over my years is that time, my life, is more precious to me than money. i realize that very few people will understand that. those closest to me don’t even comprehend it.
so that’s what this passing of a year amounts to: 365 days of time spent. another year done. it went fast. and sometimes not fast enough.
life in durango is extremely pleasant. my allergies, surprisingly, or maybe not, are almost non-existent here. the trade off is that my nose runs constantly when outside. i’ll take that trade every day. there are actually four seasons, though we did not receive much snow. the summers are mild compared to southeast texas. the winters here are much colder, but i don’t find them to be a problem. when we decided to make the move up here, i had a whole host of people say that i wouldn’t be able to tolerate the cold. jokes on them. i’ve found that i not only tolerate it, i enjoy it. that seasonal job i have is also an outside job, so i’m in the elements the whole time i’m working. from 20s and raining or snowing to sunny and in the 80s i enjoy working in it all.
these are from 2025 dec 4. we received snow for the 24 hours before. that’s been it for this whole month so far. not a good start to the snow season. we have daytime highs in the 40s to 50s and lows overnight in the teens to 20s. it was gorgeous for a just about a day, then it just turned to slush, and then ice. surprisingly, for someone that did not grow up with or in snow, i miss it. the soft silence of snow falling. the easy quiet of the world after it has fallen. the crisp crunch of it under each footstep. the clean white blanket of it covering the world. i was hoping to get to do some snowshoeing this winter, but job and not much snow seem to be confounding that hope.
i did a lot of reading in 2025. several dozen books and countless articles, editorials, and the like. the library is a mile or so away and i enjoy that tremendously. there’s also a small, very small, bookstore about halfway there, white rabbit books and curiosities, from which i’ve purchased multiple used books.
the whole store is to the right from that very small corner where the finger sign points, around the corner at the sidewalk, and as long as where the double doors are. those are not part of the store. the whole place couldn’t be more than 150 sq ft. there’s also a wonderful book store in downtown, maria’s bookshop, within a quarter mile. all of that contributed to my reading.
i started getting back into paid photography. i got two gigs shooting bike events. they loved the work i did and asked if i’d shoot again for them in 2026. i also lined up some other photography work (rafting) for the summer of 2026. i’m confident it will all work out and then i can start building from there.
here are a few shots in and around durango.
here’s to a wonderful 2026 for all of us.