Daily Didactic The morning began late and leisurely at the elegant Durango Super Eight. Our new repair shop was to begin working on the bus at 8:00, so when Brian sauntered over about 10:45 and our trusty steed was still on the lift it was a little disappointing. Today's mechanic, Doug, said that it had been a bear wrestling the old alternator from the rust and he was clearly not enjoying himself. He was in the process of doing the clutch cable and had the brake calipers left to do. Due to lunch hour, his guess was that he would be done around 1:30. We checked out of our room, dropped our bags of at the bus, and began to explore industrial east Durango. Very unlike historic downtown Durango, east Durango is decidedly non-touristy. We walked a bit to the only mall in site and wandered up and down it's small nearly empty expanse for an hour or so. We picked up a book (Brian, the bargain priced 9/11 Commision Report) and a magazine (Theresa, Yoga Journal) and headed across the parking lot to the Home Run Buffet for lunch. We hung out there as long as we could and, having not heard from our repair shop, eventually walked back over to check on the status of the bus. It was pretty disconcerting. The alternator install had gone great, the calipers were done,and the clutch cable was in. But, when they went to start the bus, smoke came from the rear engine compartment. Doug was in the process of removing the new alternator and rechecking the wiring, they guessed they would know something in an hour and would call us on our cell phone. So we wandered off in the other direction, fully checking out a OfficeMax, a fabric store, a sporting goods store, and eventually sitting at a "bistro" long enough for Brian to have three cups of coffee.A few hours later, sensing that we were about to need to find lodging again, we finally called our repair shop. Yesterday's mechanic, Wayne, was very cheerful and the bus was to be ready to roll in a few minutes. Long story short, today's mechanic Doug had shorted a couple of wires, resolved the issue, and verified there was no damage. We walked over, were treated very well from a "shop time" billing perspective, still significantly lightened our joint wallet, and climbed back on the road. Deciding to attend to some long overdue housekeeping duties, we called it a very short day of travel 45 miles west in Cortez.