Durango

We went rafting down the Animas today with a group of young hippie types who operate out of a shed in the parking lot of Albertson's Grocery Store. They drive a whole lot of you upriver in a couple of ancient schoolbuses and then send you down in groups of six or seven with one of them at the back directing operations and fishing out anyone who falls in. In our case the only involuntary men-overboard were Tom and Walker, our guide, when we hit a rock just a few minutes into the trip. There were placesto jump in (mostly we didn't) and some level 2 and 3 rapids, which are enough to bounce and splash you some but not so much as to overly trouble the older, scaredier members of the party. In between there were beautiful, peaceful stretches of drifting, swallows swooping overhead, and a pleasingly 'Huck Finn' kind of vibe. Obviously I didn't have the camera with me on the river so I had to compensate later on with some black and white shots of some of Main Avenue's more salubrious establishments - The Budget Inn Motel, Mac's Liquors andthis place...