Ash and I had been together for a little over 2 years when he decided the Outer Banks wasn’t the place for him. He moved here to become a Realtor, and while he did technically get the licensing for said Realtoring, it is fact that he was actually the world’s worst Realtor. In his 2 plus years of Realtoring, I think he sold one house. To his friend. Not a great resume there. It’s true that once he graduated college, like most of us, he had no idea what he wanted to do. He sold knives door to door for a while. He was a waiter (also in contention for the world’s worst waiter – I never actually saw him wait tables, but I did live with him for many years and a waiter he was not). He then packed his bags, loaded up his truck and made his way to my home town.

But in true Ash fashion, he grew restless. He didn’t get insta-rich, like he thought he might. He felt trapped on this little island (to be clear, not by me, I didn’t trap him until later – that’s a little shotgun wedding humor for you), and he needed to get out. He decided flight school was his new direction. He would become a pilot like his father before him. I supported his decision. We discussed that once he decided where to attend flight school (Fort Worth, TX or Farmington, NM), I would move to where he was and we would continue our life together. He first went to Texas to visit friends and see his parents. I can’t remember if he actually checked out the flight school in Fort Worth or not. I just know he was in Texas for a few weeks, I scarcely heard from him and I was equal parts irritated and excited.

When I do hear from him again, he lets me know he’s heading to Farmington, NM to, you know, check out the flight school. About an hour north of Farmington is a small, beautiful Colorado mountain town (in the San Juan Mountains, not the Rocky Mountains, and you couldn’t get high back then legally so the title of this really makes no sense) called Durango. Ash, being Ash, decides to take a detour and check out Durango, CO. And he never leaves. (Obviously he leaves eventually because our story doesn’t end in Durango, CO.)

He calls me, I remember I was with my mom, I don’t know where we were but I know that my mom went inside and I stayed outside on the phone with Ash. He’s telling me all about Durango, the beauty, the friendly people, the delicious food and even better beers. He has fallen in love. What about flight school I ask? I think he originally tells me he’s going to commute to flight school but that he couldn’t leave Durango. It was the one. Where he (and presumably I) are meant to be. I give my approval and a few days later Ash has rented a studio apartment in Durango, CO that I am to move into within the next few months.

We made long distance work as best we could for as long as we could and when we couldn’t do it any longer, I sold all of my shit, packed up my Jeep Liberty with whatever was left, grabbed my mom for company and drove my ass from Kill Devil Hills, NC to Durango, CO to be with the man I loved. Did my parents approve? No. Did I care? Also no. I was young and in love and I was going to be with my person.

I won’t lie to you and say that it was easy. None of it was easy. It was our first time living together. There were no walls in our apartment (I mean, the bathroom had walls, but the living room/dining room/kitchen/bedroom were all the same room because, you know, studio apartment and that’s what studio apartment means. Sorry. I got a little carried away there.). We had no friends. I hated my job (my first job in Durango was as a legal assistant in a basement law office where I was the only employee – I then quit that job to become a bank teller and I have to say, it was one of the most fun jobs I’ve ever had). Ash did not go to flight school. Instead, he became a barista at a local coffee shop (side note – he was also the world’s worst barista – the coffee shop closed at midnight (weird, right?!) and Ash would never make it home before 4 in the morning – now, I know how that sounds because believe me, I had the same thoughts, but they gave Ash a checklist of everything that needed to be done before leaving your shift, and it was a hefty list, and my OCD Jonesie did every last thing on that list to a T. And he was slow. And I do mean slow. And that is the cold hard truth.) We had our challenges.

But again, once you’ve made it through something, you can’t help but look back and see all the great things you did, the fun times you had, the disasters you went through. So I decided to make a list of my favorite Durango memories. Our time there was short lived (there might have been an issue with a carbon monoxide detector that kept going off in our apartment and the landlord telling us it was fine and us not agreeing and Ash maybe kicking the landlord’s door as hard as he could and the police being called and Ash and Kellie getting run out of town, maybe.) In no particular order, he are my favorite things from living in Durango, CO, you know, because you were wondering and stuff.

1. Ash had bought a mountain bike before I moved there. (He moved in May, I came in August). He convinced me that I needed a mountain bike as well, so I gave in, and bought one for myself. I remember our first day together mountain biking. I was having a blast, keeping up with Ash, riding well but also carefully, thinking I’m really quite good at this whole mountain biking thing. Then Ash stops right in front of me. I slam on my breaks and fall right the fuck over. Did you know that fancy bikes have fancy pedals and you wear fancy shoes and that those fancy shoes actually clip into those fancy pedals so that your bike is actually attached to you? Fancy.  Well, nobody told me and I wasn’t savvy enough to figure it out on own. My asshole boyfriend sure didn’t tell me, even though he knew, and very rudely did not show me how to clip in, let alone clip out. After falling slam over on the side of a mountain, he decides to give me a little lesson on clipping out. Either his teaching methods or my learning methods failed. I’ll blame him since he’s not here to say otherwise. I could not turn and pull my foot in the manner he was explaining. He decides that perhaps the side of a mountain isn’t the place to teach me. And takes me to a gravel fucking parking lot. After falling off MULTIPLE times in said gravel parking lot, I tell him to shove it up his ass and head for home. For all future rides, I did not wear the fancy shoes so that I would not clip into the fancy pedals on my fancy bike. And that worked out much better. I guess I’m just not fancy.
2. The Animas River ran right through town. Tubing the river on the weekends was one of our favorite things to do. We would park one car at our entry point and one car at our getting out point, pack a six pack in our neoprene sleeve and float away. The first time we went, we didn’t tie our tubes together or anything. I had never been tubing before but Ash kept commenting on how well I was doing, navigating my tube, staying out of the way of other tubers, he thought I was a natural. And then I got stuck on a rock and while attempting to unstuck myself, I almost got run over by a raft tour group that were none too thrilled with me being in the way. Not such a natural after all. That’s when Ash decided that maybe we should be tethered together so that when his girlfriend’s large ass gets caught on a rock again, he can save the day by getting her out of there before being run over by any large river raft tours that happen to be floating by.
3. The food. Ash and I love food. Durango, CO is just like our little beach town – full of colorful and wonderful people and some of the most delicious food ever. We figured out all our favorite spots, all just a bike ride away.
4. For my 26th birthday, we went to eat at one of our favorite Mexican places. Many shots of tequila later, we head back to our little apartment, where we had just purchased a PlayStation 2 and the game Sing Star. Now, a singer I am not. If you’ve heard my speaking voice, then you understand. Very chipmunk-esque. Not pretty. But for some reason, on Sing Star, I got a perfect score every single time on The Cranberries’ Zombie. I made that song my bitch. And I made it my bitch on my 26th birthday after too many margaritas and shots of tequila. Our windows were wide open. We lived right across from Fort Lewis College so had a lot of students in our apartment complex and let me tell you, those students were not impressed with me, The Cranberries or Zombie. Security was sent to our door 3 times to ask me to shut up before he finally begged us to just stop with the fucking singing. Proud moment there.
5. When I first arrived in Durango, I got very sick. Like a cold, but 1,000 times worse. Maybe it was the flu. Maybe not. I didn’t go to the doctor. Ash did not believe in sickness at the time. Ironic, eh? He was very much the believer of mind over matter and convinced me I was fine and just needed to get outside and get active. So I rally my ass, hop on my bike (don’t clip in), ride up the very steep road that leads to the community tennis courts and. play some tennis with Ash. Well, I try. And I fail. Because I feel like ass. Ash finally decides I am not very much fun and we leave. Well, he takes off, I’m not sure how I’m lagging so far behind him, but for some reason I am, I’m gliding down the road, half paying attention, half fantasizing I’m on my couch under a blanket, when a child darts in front of me out of nowhere, I squeeze my brakes as hard as I can, flip over the front of my bike, land on my back while the bike crashes next to me. I lay there for a minute or 2. The child that darted out in front of me just looks at me and rides off and I then hobble my way back on my bike and make it home and give Ash a piece of my mind. That’s one of those memories that’s really only good in hindsight. Going through it, we probably weren’t having much fun. But it sure is funny now.

I still have so much more I could go into but I realize how lengthy this is getting and while I find it all fascinating and entertaining, you readers probably fell asleep 8 paragraphs ago. Durango was a good chapter in the Book of Ash and Kellie. If it wasn’t for him, I probably never would have gone there in my entire life. It is one of the most beautifully breathtaking places I have ever seen. And I can’t wait to show it to my boys one day. If we’re ever allowed to leave our houses again.