The women's team stayed at the cozy Comfort Inn and Suites for which they are very grateful. The hospitality was wonderful and the rooms clean and spacious.

One of our other hotels for the night was the Best Western Rio Grande in Durango. It was a wonderful hotel with a nice pool and jacuzzi to soak in.

For the third time in a row, Iron Horse Inn in Durango has helped us tremendously by accomodating some of our runners. They helped us again this year with a two-level apartment that had a beautiful view of the mountains 

Visitors often want to share the torch with us when they see us in the parking lots.

Our team of three was greeted by some good friends who drove up from Texas for some business and to see us as well. Mark and Helen Dorion and their two children, Amalia and Toby, are always very supportive and enthusiastic about our events. They always lavish wonderful gifts upon us as well for which we are very grateful.

We are very grateful to Subway, for their delicious meals which they prepared for our lunches.

We offer the Torch Bearer Award to many worthy individuals, but this was our first 'Torch Bear' Award.

Interesting landscapes offered stories of millions of years of geological developments as seen in this gradually decaying butte.

This mesa, or flat-topped mountain, is called Mesa Verde, which means 'Green Mesa'. Some of us ran past it and enjoyed its wonderful presence and form.

Other runners had a chance to drive to the top and explore some of the mysteries which lie within its walls. A great concentration of ancestral Pueblo Indian dwellings, built from the 6th to the 12th century, can be found on the Mesa Verde plateau in south-west Colorado at an altitude of more than 2,600 m. Some 4,400 sites have been recorded, including villages built on the Mesa top. There are also imposing cliff dwellings, built of stone and comprising more than 100 rooms. (© UNESCO World Heritage Centre)

Two sisters thinking of staying here for the night in these quaint accommodations.

There were even some sightings of Petroglyphs which offer a creative look into local ancient history.

One has to be careful when exploring such steep mesas. We almost lost Tom on this one.

Later in the day in the very pretty town of Mancos one of our men's teams was greeted by 'Chip' Tuthill who presented them with a World Harmony Run Proclamation.

Chip and his wife were kind enough to come out to greet us on this Memorial Day Monday. It turns out that 'Chip' Frank Tutuhill grew up in the same hometown as Arpan. They even graduated high school in the same year and shared some of the same classes together. Unfortunately Arpan could not make it to Mancos to meet with Chip but got to talk to him over the phone.

Arpan and his team instead were welcomed to Cortez by Mayor Pro Tem. Matt Keefauver. He kindly came out to greet us on his day off on Memorial Day and offered us a proclamation from Mayor Dan Porter who unfortunately could not be present today. We are so grateful to both of them for their thoughtfulness and support of our event on this special day as we remember those who served their country.

As we made our way west and south we descended in elevation and the weather became hot and dry as the landscape flattened out and changed to a desert-like environment.

Sometimes when it is very hot, dry and windy we have to extinguish our torches for saftety reasons.

The women's team had to wait a bit while the men's team tried to reach the lunch rendevous point in the middle of 'nowhere'.

We made it to a small but quaint little town called Bluff, Utah to stay for the night. The Twin Rocks Cafe and Gift Shop where we stopped get their name from this unusual and appealing ancient rock formation towering above it.

Matthias explores one of the huge precariously balanced boulders which decorates the landscape here.

Every day people stop to find out what we are doing as they see us running down the highways with a torch. Those who very kindly stop for us usually get a thrill from holding the torch and sharing in the ideals of harmony and peace.

This character, Kokopelli, is common to this part of the country. Legend has it that he was a travelling musician who thrilled the townspeople with his souful Native American flute music.

This gentleman is hardly a Kokopelli, as he is one of our runners, Matthias, from Germany, seen here trying to get into the pioneering spirit of Davey Crockett, 'King of the Wild Frontier'.

Although he may resemble Kokopelli here, instead of playing the flute he plays his role of World Harmony Runner, extinguishing the torch the hard way at the end of the day.

In the evening we settled into this cozy and very well built wooden structure called the Desert Rose Inn with spacious balconies overlooking the beautiful rocky desert landscape.

Another day on the road has offered us another aspect of America where every day presents new opportunities to discover the beauty of the land and the heartfelt goodwill of the people.

– Arpan

Distance: 97 miles

Team Members:
Arpan DeAngelo (New York), Shobhavati Davies (New Zealand), Jana Duskova (Czech Republic), Tom McGuire (New Zealand), Katya Percheklii (Ukraine), Larissa Zub (Belarus), Matthias Eckerle (Germany), Priyala Carvalho (New Zealand), Dzmitry Kuzmich (Belarus), Daulot Fountain (Seattle)

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

Gallery: See more images!