#33 COLORADO

Last week the eyes of the world were on the Kennedy, Clinton & Obama show in Denver, CO. I was grateful that I was safely out of there the week prior to the Democratic Convention & Circus. I can’t help hoping that the very nice women who greeted us at the Antonito visitor center had a fabulous time. She was exactly the visitor center personae that I enjoy: knowledgeable, helpful, proud of her state and willing to let me make my own travel decisions, even if she didn’t agree. She mentioned that she was excited to be traveling to Denver for the Convention, even though she was certain it would be a zoo. Sometimes the zoo is a very nice place to visit.


Driving down I 25 with the Rockies soaring above you to the west and the plains sweeping out to the east one gets a feeling for how vast our country is. We were miles and miles from everything.

The Santa Fe Trail swings through southeast Colorado making a significant bend at Trinidad. My exposure to this old west town was brief before we headed over the Raton Pass into New Mexico. Mission at the Bell was our lunch stop. Trinidad is a historic small town with brick streets that looked more like a movie set than real life. The restaurant was in the cool of the basement but the enchilada sauce was spicy enough to raise anyone’s temp. It’s odd that I preferred La Mesa in Council Bluffs, IA to here. You would expect southeastern Colorado Mexican food to surpass that found in the middle of the country but that will teach me to make assumptions. Aside from our waiter who reminded us of a highland cow with his forelock sweeping down over half of his face it appeared to be a conservative, working class town. I was quite surprised to learn that Trinidad is known as the “Sex Change Capital of the World” due to a pioneering doctor, Dr. Stanley Biber. Ah, wrong with those pesky assumptions again.

Our trip north took us a bit to the west into the San Luis Valley. Our first stop was at the visitor center in Antonito. The town was founded by the railroad in 1880 and is know for the the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Narrow Gauge Railroad. Antonito also holds the title of “Perlite Capitol of the World” Perlite is used in making insulation , horticultural producers, plaster and plaster board, and used to filter medicine and liquor.

Several movies were filmed along the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad Line:
1968 The Good Guts and the Bad Guys
1970 Shootout
1972 El Savaje
1974 The Fortune
1975 Bite the Bullet and Missouri Breaks
1978 Butch and the Sundance Years
1980 Legend of the Lone Ranger
1981 Ballad of Gregorio Cotrtez
1988 Where the Hell;s that Gold?
1989 Indiana Jones and Last Crusade, Indy’s Childhood Home is at 5th and front street, Antonito
1991 Brotherhood of the Gun


Our next meal in the state was also Mexican but this time we got it right. Mrs. Rivera’s Kitchen in Alamosa is a large family run establishment. The Friday special is menudo and John couldn’t resist. I opted for the tacos a la parilla con pico de gallo. It was all really good and a good value. Judging from the large lunch crowd it’s popular with the locals.

North of Alamosa the white glow of the Great Sand Dunes National Park tucked into the western slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains was intriguing. It would have been a fun detour despite the persistent drizzle that leaned towards sleet but I couldn’t pass up visiting the world’s highest suspension bridge and the day was slipping away. This bridge is in an entirely different league than the Kootenai Suspension Bridge I traipsed across in Montana. The Royal Gorge Bridge is strung 1,053 feet above the Arkansas River. It was built in six months in 1929 for $350,000. Its main span is 880 feet, total length is 1,260 feet and width 18 feet. You can drive across, as we did, but most park and walk across (we did that too). The bridge is a park and entry require a hefty admission but it was worth it. They also have the world’s longest single-span aerial tram which crosses the span at 1,178 feet above the Arkansas River. They won’t operate the tram in gusty high winds but we lucked out and were able to ride, even though I couldn’t see a thing out the rain spattered windows. They have, wouldn’t you know, the world’s steepest incline railway, which brought us 1,550 feet down to the river on a 100% grade, in a 45-degree incline. The place is an engineer’s dream! To keep everyone happy there’s a Wildlife park featuring beautiful elk, bison and big-horn sheep. I highly recommend a visit!



























Our evening ended in Colorado Springs in heavy downpour. We awoke to reports of snow. Snow in August? In a less than aestival manner, a cold front came through that brought a chilling rain with hail and thunderstorms across Colorado. Snow fell at higher elevations, really now, isn’t the entire area a higher elevation? I regret I took no pictures but boy was the Weather Channel hyped up (they get so very excited about this stuff!) Snow was clearly visible from our California bound flight.

There were no snowflakes for the Democratic National Convention held the next week, I was so glad to be one my way out of town as everyone was coming in.

A few more interesting Colorado facts to chew on:

• More than 1/3 of the land in Colorado is owned by the US government.
• The longest street in America is Colfax Ave, in Denver.
• If you climb thirteen steps up the state capitol building in Denver, you’ll be exactly one mile above sea level.
• Nuclear explosions have taken place in five U.S. States: New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Alaska, and Mississippi.
• After experiencing the breathtaking view from Pikes Peak, Katherine Lee Bates wrote the song “America the Beautiful”

My song pick is, of course, John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High. Is there really any other contender? Check out the 1974 video on You Tube.

I bypassed James Michener’s Centennial (also from 1974 – spooky!) read Kent Haruf’s Plainsong.

Melanie Jones of the Columbia Spectator wrote:
“Kent Haruf’s book Plainsong is true to its namesake, a “simple and unadorned melody or air” that is tender in its portrayal of three families in Holt, Colo. Tom Guthrie, a local history teacher, must shield his young sons when his wife becomes clinically depressed. Victoria, a pregnant teenager, is evicted by her mother, and the McPheron brothers begin to reconsider their lifelong bachelorhood on their cattle farm. Tying them all together is Maggie Jones, a warm yet pragmatic teacher who is determined to make their lives intersect. Haruf molds his characters without judgment or hyperbole. Victoria, when asked why she had sex with a boy she barely knew, explains, “Once he said I had beautiful eyes.” When Maggie agrees that they are pretty, she replies, “But nobody ever told me.” Haruf manages to blend such achingly honest scenes with an environment both stark and nuanced, painting fall and winter in the Great Plains of Colorado as a land where “corral dust rose in the cold air ... like brown clouds of gnats” and the star-crowded sky looks “hard and pure.” Here, patches of snow sit among blue mounds of sandhill and dead sunflowers drop their loaded heads onto the black-top roads. In this atmosphere we find a land at once modernized and rural, brisk and dusty, where ice clings to the edge of sand-colored mountains.”

I loved Plainsong and I’ve got the Centennial 6-disc set in my Netflix queue to keep the Colorado spirit going.

I’ve been asked to include the URL’s from links in my posts. It’s something I always appreciate when I print an article so I’ll happily oblige:
http://local.yahoo.com/info-19737980-mrs-rivera-s-kitchen-alamosa
http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/great_sand_dunes/national_monument.html
http://www.royalgorgebridge.com/
http://50statesin08.blogspot.com/2008/08/27-montana.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwARpaKHx_w
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/30808
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_(novel)