Durango: The Town That Gets "Snowdown"

Way back in November, after we'd just gotten Baba G and ourselves settled for winter (which we're still waiting for...), we took a road trip westward, past Pagosa Springs, to the town of Durango, Colorado.

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Durango is a pretty big mountain/skiing/college town with a cute, walkable downtown, several microbreweries (we went to Ska Brewing Company on this trip, and even did the brewery tour: very interesting and we got cans of their Modus Hoperandi before the lids were screwed on!):

Most importantly to us, Durango has an eye clinic with several ophthalmologists on staff!

Since Nate had injured his right eye back on October 1st,  we knew we needed to find a new eye doc and get him in for a check-up around 100 days after his injury (early- to mid-January), because there is a potential complication called "100 Day Glaucoma" that can occur after closed-globe injuries.  If it happens, internal eye pressure rises (that's glaucoma)-- it can happen very quickly-- and can put so much pressure on the retina, it can damage the photoreceptors back there, causing blindness!  =:-O

So, after our first reconnaissance trip to Durango, Nate called around to various eye clinics and made an appoinment for January 15th.

The good news: his vision is 20/20 in the injured eye!  Good thing, since he's been doing a lot of the driving lately!  =:-O

   Me without glasses    Nate without glasses

The bad news: the doc is pessimistic about his pupil completely returning to normal size, since it has not changed much in the 100 days since his injury.  (I, however, have been noticing that his pupil is smaller, from time to time: it seems to us that the iris is functioning inconsistently, which we are going to take as evidence there is still healing going on.) 
Fingers crossed, everyone!

The other good news: the visit was covered by our new Medicaid policy!  Yay, Obamacare!  (For us, it is a total lifesaver.)

The other bad news: we needed to make at least two more followup appointments, so we'd have to make the long road trip (103 miles and two hours, each way) to Durango a couple/few more times.

Oh, well, we thought.  We'll just have to check out the other breweries in town.  And then recheck our work.  Twist our arms.  ;)

Back we went on January 31st: the doc said Nate could start tapering down his corticosteroid eye drops and stop using his eye-pressure-reducing drops over the next couple of weeks-- progress!

As it turns out, the 31st was also the kickoff for an annual Durango celebration called "Snowdown."  So, after Nate's afternoon appointment, we went to Ska (our favorite of the four breweries we'd sampled) for pizza and a couple of beers.

Then, we drove downtown for the Snowdown parade, which many of the locals apparently think is too "X-rated" to be a family event.  We had to laugh a bit when we read this in the paper: what on Earth would these folks think of Fantasy Fest?!  

Avert your eyes, Nate!  Here come fully-clothed paraders!

Snowdown is downright tame, though we were impressed at the crazy flamethrowing (from hot air balloon baskets on floats):

The parade was impressive, both in terms of its length and the time and effort put into the floats and costumes.  

And, it was the first day anyone SW Colorado (including Durango and South Fork) had actually gotten accumulations of snow... since early December!  The mood of the crowd was definitely celebratory.

Once the parade was over, we had to hop right in the car and head back home: the two-hour drive in the dark is treacherous enough, with mule deer and elk potentially waiting to jump out in front of you all along the way, but even more so with falling and blowing snow and icy roads added to the mix.

Since Nate had driven us there, it was my turn to get us home.  The roads weren't too bad, and we were making pretty good time, so we decided to stop at the other brewery in Pagosa Springs (aptly named the "Pagosa Brewing Company" to see if maybe we should add them to the Tuesday rotation.  Nah.  Very different atmosphere than Riff Raff: more family-style restaurant, rather than hip brewpub.  [We were already pretty wiped out, and totally spaced on taking pictures.]

We were thinking the decision to stop and check out the brewery had been a pretty good one, until we got to Wolf Creek Pass: the plows hadn't scraped down to bare road like they usually did.  Instead, there were about 1-2 inches of hard-packed snow under the tires, and it was pretty slippery.  I tried to keep our speed right around 30-35mph, concerned that if we fell below that, we might not have enough forward momentum to keep climbing... and if we went over that, we might slip-and-slide right out of control.  Not my favorite kind of driving...   but at least we made it home in one piece!  :{

Up Next: For the Love of Cob... We Finally Figure Out Our Next Move!