I made a promise to myself this tour. I would take every unique adventure that came my way and experience this Colorado and west coast run in a way I hadn’t previously. In 2019, I made a similar tour run with Aqueous and Big Something. Those dates were my first time in Colorado’s mountain ski towns and the west coast’s major cities. Part of the reason I took this tour was to travel the country on someone else’s dime. The work isn’t always easy, but I’m rolling with an extremely talented crew, and I get to watch one of my favorite bands make sensational music every night.
After a 9-hour drive from Denver, we rolled into Durango just before 5 PM. Durango sits in southwestern Colorado, near the New Mexico border. As we ventured for food, the town’s railroad history peeks around every corner. Restored locomotives at the Railroad Museum and western false front architecture preserve the history of this town. Main Avenue is a beautiful strip of souvenir shops, clothing stores, coffee shops, restaurants, and bars – all the trappings of a quaint tourist haven.
The entire band and crew settled on dinner at El Moro, the site of “Durango’s Strangest Shootout.” According to the restaurant’s website, in January 1906, Sheriff William Thompson raided the saloon during a poker game and hastily covered and then confiscated a roulette wheel that was in play. Thompson confronted the city marshal, Jesse Stansel, on the sidewalk outside the saloon, for his lack of enforcement. The two men exchanged insults and drew guns. Sheriff Thompson died, and Marshal Stansel was injured. At Stansel’s court trial, eyewitnesses gave conflicting reports of the incident, and the marshal was acquitted.
After dinner, Eli, Neal, Sarah, and I headed to the Durango Hot Springs, where I did something I don’t usually do. I left my phone packed away and embraced the sheer enjoyment of the moment: no pictures, no photographic evidence, just absolute immersion in the adventure. I enjoyed the conversation, human interaction, and the mineral-rich healing power of 107-degree geothermally heated groundwater.
I left the experience feeling like I’d been kissed by natural divinity, the resources of mother earth healing my fatigued soul. Looking up at the night sky, I breathed in the cool air as the steam rose from the water around me and felt the strain escape my body with every exhalation.
Before we left for the night, we headed to the yin-yang pool. Shaped as the namesake indicates, the pool offers a heated ‘lobster pot” (108 degrees) and a cold plunge (53 degrees). I soaked in the heated water for as long as my body would allow, and then without hesitation, jumped into the icy water, counted to ten, and then jumped back into the lobster pot. My body tingled until it regained heat. The feeling was an incredible sensation. As if by some masochist internal force, I wanted to do it repeatedly. In the warm water, I felt safe. But the excitement of the cold water forced me out of my comfort zone, and when I found warmth on the other side, the sensation invigorated my entire being.
I crawled back into my bunk, feeling rejuvenated. But more importantly, with a renewed sense that I could handle anything. Something about forcing my body to plunge between two worlds of hot and cold reminded me that life is seldom a temperate climate. We exist in a world more like the yin-yang pool than San Diego. But when we force ourselves out of the safety of our warm, comfortable place and plunge deep into the frigid world of the unknown, we can reappear as the best versions of ourselves.
The Durango hot springs reminded me that self-care is critical, even just for a few hours. No matter how much you think you don’t deserve the luxuries in life, you can’t take care of the world around you if you don’t care for yourself. Maybe it’s dipping your toes in the ocean, soaking in a bubble bath, reading a good book, or cuddling with someone you love. But when life seems at its toughest, the best you can do is relax, refresh, recharge, and, let off a little steam.