Last week (I wrote this at the end of January - oops!) was Snowdown, Durango's annual week-long winter festival and the theme this year was "Back to the 80s." I had no idea how much fun I was going to have, how much I missed dancing to great danceable music, and how much I'd love to go back, minus the shoulder pads.
The fun actually started at 6am January 16th, when hundreds of people were downtown Durango sitting in their cars, in the dark, listening to the local radio station—waiting for the clues...
Petra and I were at the north end of town and two more friends were at the southern end. Five clues were read on the radio and everyone went nuts! People running in all directions, hoping they had understood a clue—or were following someone who did. A line formed at each of the five designated spots, where each person was given a letter... A-Z. If you were the 27th person in line, you'd better start running again. I was in a line but was sure I was past Z, so I ran to another one and was given an "X." Phew!
YAY!!
That meant I got a spot on the trolley where I received a number, and then I ran to the Elk's Lodge with my number to get precious tickets to The Follies show, a ridiculous, rude, crude and socially unacceptable take on the 80s theme, local and national politics, and general buffoonery. Snowdown isn't the same if you don't score Follies tickets, and I was the only one of the four of us to get them that freezing morning. Luckily, you're allowed to buy four, so we all got one and woohoo!!
The festivities always start on a Wednesday with the Dos & Don'ts Fashion Show, an untasty luncheon with hilarious runway show where you'd be forgiven for thinking no one in Durango works.
Next up was the Kids' Follies, a far gentler version of the adult Follies.
Even Madonna needs to eat...
My siblings might recognize this original 80s shiny jogging suit jacket. ♥
On Friday night is The Parade, a spectacle nearly the whole town comes out for. The evening was mild and the music rocking.
And people got creative with their interpretations of the 80s theme. Here is our friend John Ford as Betelgeuse. Ha! Awesome.
The Follies themselves were excellent this year; in this act the invisible robots lit up to the beat of "Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto." ♫
Here's Sue during intermission interviewing fellow audience members with a fake microphone. It's never dull with Sue. Ever! She's such a hoot.
There were hundreds of events over the five days and while I couldn't go to even a small fraction of them, it was enough to feel as though I'd been transported back to Portugal in Marty McFly's time machine and I was gutted when it was over. It took a couple of days to recover from the realization that I'm not young anymore—when did that even happen??—and that I still have clothes from the 80s in my closet, and that I will never, ever have a good hair day like this again:
But that might not be a bad thing.
