Okay, I’m back. You may not have noticed my absence; I only took a couple weeks off, really. There was no good reason, I was just busy and kind of in a bad mood. I’m back and ready to write a bit now, though, so here I go.

I spent last weekend in Durango, Colorado for yet another volleyball tournament. The season’s almost over, and this was the last tournament in a different state. The tournament itself is three days of volleyball squished into two very long days, so it’s kind of an endurance test. The girls played really well, though, and had a lot of fun and made it all the way to fourth place, beating out all the other teams their age and only finally losing to some older teams.

Durango itself is cute as hell and fun to walk around, so we actually drove up a day early so we’d have time to enjoy it. We bought some books and art, ate Tibetan food (delicious) and Mexican-Indian fusion tacos (a bit odd, but I liked them), and watched deer and chipmunks as we wandered over by the river.

We stayed in the Historic Strater Hotel right on the historic main street. It was about the same price as the other hotels in town, and very close to both the sightseeing and the tournament venues. The Strater is not haunted (we asked) but it is beautiful. the actual building was built in the late 1800s and has seen much preservation and restoration work over the years. There are little historical displays set into the walls, and the rooms are all uniquely decorated with history-inspired wall paper and actual Victorian antique furniture. My daughter and I both loved the vibe and the staff was super friendly and used to guests wandering the halls, and one cleaner let us peek into some empty suites while we cleaned. Our room was all pastel and rose gold, with a lovely antique desk in the corner that I fell in love with.

It’s hard to see in the picture, but the desk had a little guest book to sign. We enjoyed reading previous guests’ entries, and we were sure to leave compliments of our own before checking out.

The cleaner let us see a beautiful white and emerald green room that I didn’t get pictures of, and the Louis L’amour room that I did get pictures of. Apparently, famous Western writer Louis L’amour actually wrote several novels in that room. I have read exactly zero of L’amour’s novels, but used bookstores out west are full of them, so maybe I’ll have to pick one up.

Man, I would love to write a novel in a room like that. Mine would probably have ghosts in it, though.

And there I am thinking about books again. Tournaments mean lots of reading during down time, but I think the books deserve their own post. Thanks to my sister, I’ve dived into some exciting new authors that I’ll tell you all about next week. Until then, I hope you have a great week. With or without ghosts involved, your choice. –Corvus