There’s the yin and the yang to everything, is it not true?
Our time in Pagosa Springs wasn’t a complete purgatory. Pagosa is a family-friendly town with a lot of fun stuff to do outside that doesn’t slim the wallet much. After drinking all the local coffee, eating all the local ice cream, doing all the local hikes, when the kids were complaining of “nothing to do” at the campsite, we would just spend hours on the banks of the San Juan River, the kids tubing the lazy rapids all afternoon.
Our campground wasn’t always an insane asylum either. I enjoyed the fact we didn’t have any WiFi or cell reception. Circling its perimeter was a high-flowing creek with a small block waterfall that went under a short bridge at the entrance. I spent a lot of time with the dogs under that bridge.
This was also monsoon season and several of our hikes and other adventures got rained out. But those rainy days became Creativity Days where the kids sat at the picnic table under the awning of the camper, drawing, coloring, painting, sculpting, building models, dancing, and whatever else inspired them.
As for the background of our lives, we did our best to live in denial. With my jaw out of place it was difficult, but not impossible. I meditated longer. I wrote more. Chelsea started running. The clock was ticking and time certainly seemed to drag, and as we considered our contingency plans, our time in Pagosa was drawing to an end.
We were two weeks out from closing the sale of our Arkansas property. But we’d been in this situation so many times before, we put no faith in the process. Nonetheless, we decided the best thing to do would be to park ourselves at a campground somewhere near Pueblo and begin checking things out. We chose a KOA in Colorado City, about twenty miles south of Pueblo. That’s where we would wait and finally accept our fate. As we packed up and pulled the caboose out of Pagosa, Chels and I discussed our options.
If the Arkansas property sells, we stay in Colorado.
If it doesn’t, we flip a coin.
Heads: Stay in Colorado.
Tails: Go back to Oregon.
Two weeks to Game Time.
So what’s the next story?
I’ll post the next chapter by the end of the week. “AOK KOA in Colorado City”…or something like that.