Surprise - no more journal! Looks like I lost the thread at the end of the trip for some reason. You'd think I could have caught up over breakfast in Durango or on the flight home, but no. Since my memory of the day is so sketchy, we'll have to use our imaginations a bit here. I do remember that the airport seemed pretty far from Durango, even though it was barely a thirty mile day and mostly downhill at that. And I had all day, because the journal lists departure time as 4:45 PM. My reading of this evidence is that the last day was an anticlimax, and that I was pretty saddle-weary and ready for a day off.
At least I thought to take a photo of the airport.
Hardly seems worth a separate page in the journal, so I'm filling it out with a family portrait from our household at the time, in alphabetical order. This is a pretty age-accurate album of what we all looked like back then - all of the shots were taken within a year or so of the tour. Pretty great crowd to return home to!
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Kitty, one of the cats Rachael brought to the family. This is soon after I returned from the tour - it looks like I was finishing off the last roll of film. She must have been five or six years old at the time. I've forgotten exactly when we had to let her go, but it was for safety reasons - she reacted badly to fleas, which we could never fully keep away from her. One night in 1994, the evening before we were departing for Vienna on our second European tour, she crawled under the blankets, went into a ferocious scratching spasm, and lacerated Rachael's hand. We had to take her into the emergency room, and her hand still bothered her several days into the tour. After a second episode like this, we had to give up on her.
Kitty, one of the cats Rachael brought to the family. This is soon after I returned from the tour - it looks like I was finishing off the last roll of film. She must have been five or six years old at the time. I've forgotten exactly when we had to let her go, but it was for safety reasons - she reacted badly to fleas, which we could never fully keep away from her. One night in 1994, the evening before we were departing for Vienna on our second European tour, she crawled under the blankets, went into a ferocious scratching spasm, and lacerated Rachael's hand. We had to take her into the emergency room, and her hand still bothered her several days into the tour. After a second episode like this, we had to give up on her.
Sabaki, my feline contribution to the group. The photo is taken at the end of the tour, along with the one of Kitty up above. The name is a term from the Japanese board game Go (I was an avid Go player at the time), meaning 'light shape'. It was an apt name - she was a very delicate animal, but long-lived. She finally passed away at the age of 19, about the time we moved to Portland.
Our son Shawn: about 19 at the time, and in his last year living at home with us. He lives back in Minneapolis now, solo parenting his two daughters. You'll get a fresher look at them later this year when we go back for a visit and short bike tour.
Our son Shawn: about 19 at the time, and in his last year living at home with us. He lives back in Minneapolis now, solo parenting his two daughters. You'll get a fresher look at them later this year when we go back for a visit and short bike tour.
