After a brief blog boycott, I'm back due to an overwhelming reader demand (can you call 2 people an 'overwhelming' demand?). In much the same way Carol C is always pointing out my protruding gut in photos any time the lights and shadows create an optical illusion, I'm sure Bonnie D just didn't realize how sensitive any new age male like myself can be.

We're into the last couple of days of the 65 Years Young Birthday Tour and Dusty Dave has become a little more accustomed to his new diet of prunes and Pablum (OK- that probably wasn't too sensitive). We had spent a number of days in the heat and sun of New Mexico and Arizona, but we were wrapping up with cooler temperatures and even a little snow- we wanted to ease our two friends back into the winter climates they need to endure when they head home.

That said we did not realize how high and how far into the park the Mesa Verde sites are so we had Billy Thunder in full 4 wheel drive mode and we skidded and slid our way to all of the more significant locations. Mesa Verde (Spanish for "green table") National Park is the largest archaeological preserve in the US and is best known for structures such as Cliff Palace, thought to be the largest cliff dwelling in North America. Mesa Verdeans built the first pueblos sometime after 650, and by the end of the 12th century they began to construct the massive and famous cliff dwellings. By 1285, following a period of social and environmental instability driven by a series of severe and prolonged droughts, they abandoned the area and moved south to locations in Arizona and New Mexico. These are spectacular dwellings (probably more so in the summer season) but I'm not sure the Killer B's were thinking it was a worth slugging through the cold and snow, and the ice driving in the dark wasn't a treat.

We had been wrapping up most tough-drive days with a beer but the idea that Colorado had recently legalized marijuana had us thinking about a walk to the wild side- a new industry has sprung up catering to groovy grass smoking tourists. I suspect that a toking Deb B would be akin to force-feeding a tightly wound energizer bunny a laced brownie. Hyper and laid-back; like oil and water, these two things just don't mix. Any such attempted chemical alteration of Deb B might cause a total meltdown of her internal circuitry and she seemed to know it. As enthusiastic as she was to mainline,snort, and/or hot knife candy floss mountains, massive deep fried onions, and bulls testicles, she was decidedly reluctant to try smoking any sort of plant lest it affect her health.

DH was much more enthusiastic and she was hoping to use Dusty Dave in order to get a seniors discount at the local weed store in Durango. Apparently the citizenry of Durango was under the impression that tourists were still coming to ride Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad or take in the spectacular setting of the downtown area- if marijuana tourism is on the rise we couldn’t find it. DH had to be satisfied with an hour of browsing through the Original Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (even here she was expecting to find those brownies).

Drug free, we wrapped up our brief stay in Colorado and sped down to Albuquerque to drop off the Killer B’s. Once again we had a great time and a lot of laughs with our friends, and it was hard to see them go (particularly since we’ve now lost that seniors discount we were starting to get used to).