Chapter 70 -- Colorado
July 9, 2001
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5/25 Mom & Pop RV Park, in Farmington, New Mexico, is just a gravel and blacktop parking lot with hookups, surrounded by bare chain link fence in an industrial area with occasional heavy truck traffic -- not pretty at all. But it has turned out to be a very pleasant place, thanks largely to Pop, who is owner, manager, and apparently sole employee. "Mom" seems to remain largely invisible in her home -- a doublewide mobile home at the back of the property. Pop is friendly, very laid back, and very helpful. When I checked in, he handed me a xerocopied packet of information about the RV Park and the local area, and said, "Now, I gotta tell you about the park rules. Do you have a pet?" After I said "no", he said, "well, that takes care of the park rules", and went on to another topic. For Email, he seated me at his own desk in the office and showed me where to plug in my modem cord. It's apparently the one and only phone line, but he seems totally unconcerned about how much time I spend on-line. The place is clean and reasonably neat, has good-quality modern hookups, and costs $14.77/night, reduced further by a "four nights for the price of three" special.
Pop spends his spare time making toys. The yard outside the office has an elaborate model train set up, and there's another model train inside. The combination office/store/workshop is full of display cases containing hundreds of toy soldiers and other cast-metal figurines. He casts his own objects, then does an elaborate hand-finishing and painting job on each, in an amazing range of styles and periods. One display case contains an entire Roman Legion, marching in formation. Another case contains a miniature Bill and Hillary Clinton. Most are for sale, at moderate prices.
Farmington is a center of supplies and services for the local oil and natural gas industry. It seems like half the businesses have something to do with equipment and services for this industry. As we drive around the area, wellheads appear with regularity -- in farm fields, on hillsides and, in the valley along the river.
Farmington also has a substantial Indian presence. There are large Indian reservations relatively close in all directions: Navajo and Hopi to the west, Utes to the north, Apaches to the east, and several smaller reservations to the south.
The city maintains a string of parks along the bank of the Animas River, which flows on a meandering path through town, all linked together by a "Riverwalk". We spent a pleasant evening walking a portion of this 6-mile trail. A two-day "River Fest" was just ending, and the parks and paths were crowded with throngs of happy families patronizing clusters of food and art vendors, and a small carnival set up across the street.
A perfume was on the air along the shaded walks. It took a while for us to realize it came from the Russian Olive trees in bloom. The Animas River is flowing swiftly with spring runoff from the mountains to the north.
To the south, the city ends abruptly at the San Juan River. The river valley is subject to periodic flooding, and contains few buildings. The south side of the river is bordered by high cliffs, limiting expansion in that direction and providing an attractive backdrop for views from almost anywhere in town.
5/26 The Bolack Museum, just a couple of miles east of our RV Park on the east edge of town, is a strange place, not heavily advertised but very much worth visiting. Tom Bolack, now dead, made lots of money in the gas and oil well business and operated (more or less as a hobby) the 12,000-acre B-Square ranch, which spans the San Juan River for several miles at the southeast edge of town.
Governor Bolack (he actually was Governor of New Mexico, for a very brief period) was also a world traveler and big game hunter. The Wildlife Museum has been built to house his incredibly large collection of stuffed mounted animals as well as other artifacts honoring his life and career. The building, located in the middle of the ranch, is a series of additions, which surround and incorporate his home. Although not pretentious, the building had a skilled architect and apparently an unlimited budget, so the interior is beautifully and tastefully designed (at least it's as tasteful as a collection of stuffed animals can be), in an understated "ranch house" style, but using the best of building materials.
The museum is free, but open only by advance appointment, and only with a guided tour, and is hard to find. There's no sign at the highway. The ranch driveway is labeled only with the ranch brand -- a blue "B" inside a square. The tour takes about an hour.
What makes this museum so unusual is that many of the animals preserved here are extremely rare and will never be seen in zoos. The animals are skillfully prepared and lifelike, and are presented in dioramas mimicking their natural habitat. The walls are covered with huge panoramic photographic enlargements, again depicting the natural habitat of the animals in that exhibit. This place is reminiscent of the Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World museum in Springfield, Missouri. It's not as big overall as the Bass Museum and lacks the art and ceramic collection and the aquariums, but the Bolack animal collection seems more varied and better presented.
Tommy Bolack, Tom's son, continues to run the ranch and has also started his own museum, called the Mechanical and Electrical museum. This is a separate tour, which also takes an hour. It's located a mile or so from the Wildlife Museum, still on the ranch, but on the other side of the river, tucked up against the southern cliffs. Unlike the lavish Wildlife Museum, the Mechanical and Electrical museum is housed in a huge spartan pole barn. It's almost totally unorganized. Tommy is a junk collector. He seems to want to own one of everything, but never gets around to restoring, cataloging, or labeling anything. Dave found it fascinating; Helen was less impressed. The two grey-haired local farm couples who toured with us found it even more fascinating -- they were older than we were, and remembered much of this stuff from their early years.
In listening to the reminiscing of these local oldsters and comparing it to my own early years, I had a new insight: I hadn't realized just how long it took modern technology to migrate from East to West across this country. These people, who were probably in their early 70's, had used hand-crank telephones without dials well into their adult years. Growing up in a medium-sized city in Michigan, our earliest memories of telephones were of rotary dial phones, which looked very similar to modern phones.
The overall collection could only be called "eclectic": perhaps the world's largest collection of power line insulators; a 1950's jet aircraft engine; a wide variety of very early farm equipment; a complete control, metering, and switching system from an early electric power plant; several huge electric generators and stationary internal combustion engines from early power plants; a variety of early small computers; early vacuum-tube radio transmitters and receivers; 1950's and '60's electronic lab equipment including what may be one of Hewlett-Packard’s first products -- a very primitive-looking model 201 audio oscillator; an early, mostly wooden, oil-drilling rig; one of the very first commercial medical X-ray machines -- with open high-voltage wires and a huge glass X-Ray tube suspended in the open above the patient's hard steel bed; and much more. Steam engines were absent, and we were told that Tommy was actively looking for a steam engine to acquire. I would guess that by the time this part of the country was settled, steam engines for stationary power or farm equipment had largely disappeared in favor of internal combustion engines.
5/27 Having visited Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and quite a few other archeological sites, why go to another one? Well, Aztec Ruins was too close to pass up, even if it was likely to be the same stuff. And I was lucky. It was a little different.
Aztec Ruins has some one-of-a-kind buildings. The basic D-shaped layout of this pueblo with a 450' back wall is like the great houses in Chaco Canyon. But the masonry shows this pueblo was built in three different phases by three different cultures, first the Chaco Canyon Culture, then the Mesa Verde Culture, then the National Park Service Restoration Crew. An infoboard illustrates the three different styles as you stand in front of a wall built by all three, one section above the other. There were more rooms devoted to burials (and burial goods) than normally found in the southwest. Two tri-walled buildings are unique to this site. (The walls are three concentric circles, each about 10' larger than the one inside it.). The Giant Kiva is the largest found yet in the southwest.
Normally, reconstructed ruins aren't quite the thing -- seeming not authentic, but the Giant Kiva here was something else. Reconstructed by the archeologist who did most of the excavation, it is a grand experience. Perhaps I was impressed by the high ceiling, which is now deemed to be higher than the original, but this was a special place anyway. Deep in the earth, four massive uprights held up the lofty beamed ceiling. The walls were brightly painted in white and the intense deep red of the desert, but not decorated with any of the sacred motifs that are often in Kivas.
Aztec Ruins has nothing to do with the Aztecs, except that in the early 1900's it was recognized that it took a major civilization to build such a large site of quarried sandstone and the Aztecs were one of the very few known at that time. Knowledge of pre-Columbian civilization in the southwest has accumulated since then (largely because of excavations such as the one here).
Political correctness has gutted the museum. The display was mostly burial goods, which have now been removed in deference to Indian attitudes about ancestors. Federal funding has recently been set aside for all new displays. I hope they get a new AV show, too. The current one is all mystic Indian hype (heavy on sunrises and sunsets, with flute music echoing through canyons) with few facts or pictures of artifacts or the buildings themselves.
5/28 Hitched up and moved out this morning, following US-64 East through attractive high-desert canyons and mesas to Chama, then turning north on SR-17. We were a bit nervous about SR-17, having previously found that state highways in New Mexico are not necessarily what other states would call highways. A couple of years ago, we found ourselves on New Mexico State Route 126 (fortunately, without the trailer), traversing 25 miles of unimproved dirt forest road.
However, SR-17 turned out to be a fine road, perhaps because it crosses into Colorado (keeping the same number) about 10 miles past Chama. The road has a lot of squiggles on the map as it traverses the mountain range, but is built to modern standards with wide, mostly paved shoulders and no unusually sharp curves. The steepest grade is labeled as 10% and is quite short. Our GPS indicated 10,200 feet as we crossed the highest pass, a mile higher than the day's starting point in Farmington. This is beautiful country -- the southeastern corner of the San Juan Mountains, with many peaks around 11,000 feet. There is still lots of snow on the peaks and in the sheltered places, starting at about 10,000 feet. We made several roadside stops, to enjoy the view and inspect the wildflowers. No surprises among the flowers, except the striking Rocky Mountain Clematis (Vase Flower), with a large vase-shaped maroon flower.
While we were stopped in a scenic pullout in the high pass, we heard a steam whistle and then walked to an overlook where we could see the narrow-gauge train tracks of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, twisting their way along the mountainside. The train soon came into view -- an old steam locomotive puffing very, very slowly up the grade, bringing back memories of Edgar A Guest and "I think I can . . . I think I can . . .". It was pulling several enclosed passenger cars and one open flatbed car which was full of shivering tourists, braving the brisk mountain breeze (and the cinders and smoke from the locomotive just ahead), in order to enjoy the spectacular panoramic view.
Once in Colorado, most of the route is in National Forest, and there are quite a few National Forest campgrounds. Many of these NFS campgrounds are shown on the maps in both Street Atlas and Map'n'Go, and the latter also has useful descriptions of each campground. However, the descriptions should not be taken as gospel. We chose Elk Creek NFS Campground without noticing that Map'n'Go said it has a 22' RV length limitation. In fact, it seems to have no limit at all. We had no difficulty getting in with our 35' trailer and 55' overall length, and we found plenty of long sites, including quite a few long pull-through sites.
We're parked beside Elk Creek, which is still near its peak flow, swollen with snowmelt and icy cold. The creek is so noisy that conversation is difficult outside the trailer. We have a long view down the creek into a larger valley where the creek joins the Conejos River, about a mile away. Straight across the creek, our view is dominated by the rocky summit of 10,561-foot Mt. McIntyre. It's a tempting target for a climb, although I'm told that there's no trail and it will be a steep bushwhack all the way.
The campground has 29 sites, well spread out, and each has a picnic table and fire ring. There are a pair of chemical vault toilets and a pair of hand-pumped water wells, but no other facilities. There is a resident campground manager, in a 5th wheel near the entrance. These campgrounds are now managed by a private company, under contract to NFS.
One evening, the older couple who are the campground managers stopped to talk for a few minutes. They are here all summer -- about May 15 to Sept 15, and have done this for the past 4 years. The rest of the year, they live in their home in Kansas. Once every three weeks they make an all-day trip to Alamosa, 53 miles away, to buy supplies and do laundry.
It's very pleasant here. There's only one other camper, not counting the managers, but even if it were full (and it apparently does fill up on weekends), we'd probably not hear the other campers over the noise of the stream. Sitting outside, about all we hear besides the stream is an occasional close bird -- including the shrill buzz of hummingbirds zooming past (a surprisingly large number of them). The campground is decorated with frequent clumps of pale blue iris, scattered clusters of red/yellow columbine and bright "yellow pea".
During today's trip, we crossed the Continental Divide. Water from the stream we're camped beside eventually flows into the Rio Grande River, which then flows to the Gulf of Mexico. I suppose that means we're back in the "East" for the first time in a year.
5/31 This afternoon, we drove North up Fdr-250, a bumpy, narrow, but otherwise good Forest Service road which joins SR-17 just a mile or two from our campground. (Anybody know what "Fdr" stands for? -- Forest Dirt Road?) The route follows the Conejos River 25 miles to Platoro, a small ramshackle summer community of hunting lodges, outfitters, and private cabins. Just above Platoro, the canyon has a large earthfill dam, forming a 2-mile-long reservoir. We branched off on Fdr 247 for a few miles, to drive along the reservoir and enjoy the views, then returned to Fdr 250, which leaves the river at this point and switchbacks its way steeply up to Stunner Pass, the high point of our trip at about 10,700 feet elevation.
We could have kept going and turned the trip into a loop, but it would have been at least another two hours of forest road, getting back to civilization far to the east on US-285, with still an hour's drive from there back to the campground. We chose to retrace our steps. A good choice, since the southbound trip was more scenic than the northbound leg, with frequent spectacular views south down the Conejos Canyon.
We stopped frequently along the road to photograph the landscape and inspect the wildflowers. We saw a blue clematis, and a flower almost like a marsh marigold, neither of which appears in any of our several identification books.
Along the way, we passed three NFS campgrounds, all with facilities similar to the one we're currently camped in. All were beautiful, and had at least some campsites, which would accommodate big rigs. All had river access, and two also were close to small lakes. There were also two primitive campsites (totally undeveloped -- just a rough dirt track leading to a big, reasonably flat, area to camp. Several labeled but rough parking areas have been built along the road, at trailheads for river access points. This looks like a fly fisherman's paradise.
6/1 This morning, I was surprised to hear the unmistakable honking of a Canada Goose. A single goose flew in, and is exploring a tiny island in the stream, about 25 feet away from me. It soon wandered off downstream and hasn't been seen since
We've spent a lot of time just sitting in our lounge chairs beside the creek. The creek level changes noticeably from day to day, and even during the day. We speculate that this is due to greatly increased snowmelt during the middle of sunny days, and re-freezing at night. The changes are not dramatic because of the long delay as the melt water trickles slowly down the mountainsides, and the averaging effect of the differing delays from snowfields at different distances from us. Over the several days we've been here, the average level of the stream has dropped significantly, and the noise of the water has dropped even faster.
We've had campfires most evenings, bundling up in layers of warm clothing to augment the heat of the fire. At this high altitude, the temperature drops quickly as soon as the sun sets. Every day has been comfortable T-shirt temperatures, but a warm coat is needed after dark.
6/3 Hitched up and headed east, following the Conejo River through a gradually widening valley. This is very good ranch land, with lush grass in the bottomland and open forest on the slopes, the forest gradually changing from ponderosa to pinyon/juniper as we descended into a warmer and dryer zone. After about 15 miles, the Conejos valley opened out into the huge San Luis Valley. We continued east on SR 17 to Antonito, which is gradually changing itself from a small, sleepy, decaying village into a gussied-up tourist town, thanks to the attraction of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad which has its terminus here.
At Antonito, we turned north on US 285 through flat ranch and farmland. Another 30 miles brought us to Alamosa, the largest town in the region (big enough to have a Safeway), where we stopped for fuel and groceries. We then turned east on US 160 for about 15 miles, and then north another 15 miles on SR 150 to Great Sand Dunes National Monument. We're staying at Great Sand Dune Oasis -- a general store, motel, campground, and RV Park. The RV Park (full hookups) and campground (no hookups) are high on the alluvial fan at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
The evening view from the RV Park is something not to be missed. Behind us, The Sangre de Cristos rise steeply. To the west and south, we can see across the 75-mile wide San Luis Valley to the San Juan Mountains. After sunset, we can see the path of the Rio Grande River far out in the valley, marked by a north-south band of lights from the many small towns and big ranches along the river. This huge valley is larger than the State of Connecticut. It is one of the largest potato-growing regions in the world, and also supplies barley for the Coors brewery. The valley is a geologic fault zone, a deep crack in the earth, which caused the band of volcanic activity, which became the San Juan Mountains. Over the eons, the valley, originally several thousand feet below sea level, has filled with sand, gravel, and clay eroded from the mountains on both sides. In some places, the original floor of the valley lies over five miles below the present surface.
The wind can be fierce and relentless, blowing almost constantly up the valley from the south or southwest. In this upper end of the valley, the wind is funneled and concentrated as it seeks a path through a low pass in the mountains. At the campground, it often blows 60 mph for day after day, particularly in May. This wind brings sand and silt with it, carrying the silt over the mountain, but dropping the heavy sand in a zone of turbulence in front of the mountain barrier, forming the Great Sand Dunes.
The dunes are reputed to be the highest inland dunes in the country, rising up to 700 feet from the valley floor and extending over an area of about 40 square miles. The sand is remarkably complex and interesting. It is a mixture of quartz sands from the Sangre de Cristos and volcanic sands from the San Juans, so that the individual sand grains vary widely in size, color, and density. The wind, as it constantly stirs the dune surface, partially sorts the sand grains by size and weight, so that the surface of the dunes is a fascinating surrealistic pattern of subtle colors, from the black of heavy magnetite grains, through a variety of greys and tans, to the almost pure white of quartz. I found that I could crudely sort the sand myself, just by shaking it in my hand, dispersing the light grains and leaving a fine jet-black powder of heavy magnetite in my palm.
The back (northeast) side of the dunes is very steep -- most of it right at the "angle of repose" of about 34 degrees. As a result, massive sand slides are common. We could see the remains of recent slides, and also could see an almost continuous flow of sand skidding down some portions of the surface.
6/4 This morning, we took a commercial tour of the dunes, operated from our campground. A primitive road skirts the edge of the dunes to the north and ascends a short distance into the mountain pass behind the dunes. The vehicle is a 4-wheel drive truck fitted with special wide, low-pressure tires. (Even with the special tires, the truck just barely made it through the deepest sand areas on the road. Don't try this with a stock jeep). The flat-bed back of the truck has an overhead sunshade and 21 hard plastic seats.
The forest is strange -- many zones of dead trees, some of which are in the process of being buried, with others being exhumed after long burial.
6/5 Hiked to Zapata Falls -- an easy, although somewhat uphill hike on a rocky trail. The falls are at the end of a short slot canyon, almost a cave, and seeing them requires hiking upstream several hundred feet while wading in the stream. The stream flow is brisk and the water, fresh from melting snowdrifts above, is still near-freezing. The view of the falls is obscured by dense mist, and the sound is amplified by the closed-in walls, a slightly eerie environment
In the evening, we went flower-hunting, hiking a nature trail at the base of Mosca Pass, driving through the campground in the National Park (not suitable for big rigs -- only a few sites would be possible), and driving the primitive road to the dunes (only the first mile or two -- the rest is 4-wheel-drive-only, requiring high clearance and oversized low-pressure tires to get through the deep, loose sand and to negotiate the rocky stream crossings). Only a couple of flowers we hadn't seen elsewhere in the area. There are many wild roses, which are just coming into bloom and will soon be putting on an impressive show.
Near dusk, we drove to "The Beach". At the northeast edge of the dunes, a stream flows down from the mountains, constantly being blocked by sand cascading down the steep dune faces, and then washing the sand downstream and out into the valley. At the point where the road dead-ends in a parking lot and picnic area, the stream is wide and braided, constantly washing new channels through the sand. Later in the season, it would be a pleasant place to play on a hot day. Today, the water is numbingly cold.
The stream flow is uneven, with the flow slowly diminishing, and then suddenly increasing as a "tidal bore" a couple of inches high rushes down the stream. The explanation lies in an instability in the loose sand being carried downstream with the flow. In areas of wide gentle flow, the sand drops to the bottom and builds a dam, slowing or stopping the flow. As the water piles up behind the dam, it eventually breaks through, and the strong flow at the break quickly erodes the dam and allows all the accumulated water to escape. Helen timed the oscillation and found it to be very regular with a 15-second period.
Helen explored along the stream, while Dave waded across the stream and hiked into the dunes, ascending one of the smaller dunes and then sitting in this Sahara-like environment to watch the shadows spread as the sun set. There are two plants, which thrive, in the shifting sand -- a specialized grass and the scurfpea -- a pea family member that can very rapidly grow long stems and roots to keep its roots buried and its head above the moving sand.
6/6 Hitched up, retraced our route back south to US 160, then headed east. At Interstate 25, we turned south and continued to Trinidad. The scenery was an interesting mixture of volcanic and sedimentary rock structures, with isolated black basalt volcanic plugs occasionally sticking far up above the softer sedimentary layers. We passed basalt dikes extending linearly for many miles, where the basalt extruded up through long faults in the older rock. We set up camp in Trinidad State Park, on a high bluff overlooking Lake Trinidad about 3 miles west of the city. The lake is a several-mile-long reservoir behind a high earth-fill dam. From our campsite, we have a great view over the lake to Fischer Peak, an interesting staircase-shaped extinct volcano a few miles to the east.
Checking into the park, we were handed an addendum to the park literature, apologizing for their old and cranky electrical system. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that our power outlet had a loose connection inside, and was erratically dropping to about 70 volts as soon as I applied a significant load (but tested fine with our usual tester under light load). A couple of sites near us were empty, so I ran a long extension cord to an adjacent site rather than hitch up and move -- our site had the best view of the mountains.
6/7 Trinidad has a well-preserved historic area dating back to when the town was first built -- starting in about 1860. Main Street was built right along the mountain branch of the Santa Fe Trail. The founding of the town is generally defined as the time when Felipé Baca settled here, importing a large sheep herd, developing an irrigation system, and planting a large area of the fertile bottom land along the river. Within a decade, Mr. Baca was rich, other business owners had arrived and become affluent, and impressive large two-story houses were being built along main street. Several of these houses have been preserved and are now museums. The Baca house is an unusual two-story adobe home with 18" thick walls. Another house, almost next door, was built only a decade later, (about 1880), but is built of fired brick. From the beginning, it had central heat and had both gas lights and was wired for electricity (the town had a gas plant at this time, but an electric generating station wasn't built until six years after this house was built -- how's that for foresight on the part of the builder?) The original chandeliers are still there -- with both gas jets and electric lights in the same fixture.
Behind these two houses is a cluster of smaller adobe buildings, originally barns and servant's quarters, and now a museum (The Trinidad History Museum and the Santa Fe Trail Museum). A single admission ticket covers the museum and a guided tour of the houses. The houses are authentically furnished for the period when they were built. The museum nicely presents the history of the town and the Santa Fe Trail -- a very worthwhile stop. We had hoped to visit the art museum, just down the street, but it had just had a power failure and was closed, waiting for an electrician.
We're beginning to get typical summer mountain weather: It's mostly sunny, except when isolated, short-lived but intense thunderstorms come through -- which can happen anytime from about noon through late evening. The storms are so compact that even when the sky gets black and it feels like we're standing on ground zero, there's only about a 20% chance of a direct hit and significant rain where we are standing.
6/8 Yesterday, while reading the Denver Post, we noticed an announcement of a very interesting concert in Denver, which we'd like to attend. So this morning we hooked up and headed that direction. The concert is the evening of the 10th, so we'll spend a couple of nights in Colorado Springs, visiting the art museum and hoping to see friends there.
The drive up I-25 provides plenty of interesting scenery and surprisingly little traffic. To the east, we see broad prairies, punctuated with low mesas and occasional canyons and volcanic dikes. To the west, we see the Front Range -- the easternmost Rocky Mountains, rising just a few miles away. Low mountains form a continuous wall, and there is usually at least one high peak of the "back range" visible, still with plenty of snow near the summit.
We're camped at Garden of the Gods Campground, right in Colorado Springs. It's a slightly shaggy place, made pleasant by spreading elm trees shading the sites and a patch of colorful petunias between each site. Many of the sites have instant phone hookups.
6/9 The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center is a large building, which, from the outside, is in the mid-20th century bombshelter tradition -- unadorned slab-sided poured concrete, with all the defects of the wooden constructions forms left exposed. On the inside, it's quite pleasant, well-finished in a sort of post-art-deco style. The bulk of the display space was occupied by special exhibits, and we were disappointed to find that none of their American landscape collection was currently on display. A large interior courtyard and the east lawn are sculpture gardens, containing quite a few carefully chosen and interesting pieces, largely from 20th C. Southwest sculptors (Allan Houser's serene bronze Indian Maidens, Luis Jiminez' bright fiberglass folklore figures, and Douglas Hyde's limestone Basket Dancers.) We found the special exhibit of panoramic photographs on the American Rockies by Gus Foster especially interesting. One was a 382-degree sweep which created a very interesting effect with its almost-symmetry on the edges but not in the center.
6/10 Hitched up and headed north, stopping after a few miles at the Air Force Academy Visitor's Center. The campus is impressive -- designed and built from scratch in the affluent 1950's, apparently with an unlimited budget. The site, on a gentle slope tucked up against the steep foothills of the Front Range, is spectacular, with mountains close to the west and a view out over the valley to the East. The Visitor's Center has extensive displays, which explain the mission and the educational programs of the Academy. Interestingly, it hardly mentioned airplanes, and except for a B-52 on a pedestal at the entrance and a small sailplane hanging from the ceiling in the Visitor's Center, there were no airplanes, and no airport visible.
Another hour of driving up I-25, paralleling the Front Range, brought us to Denver and then to our RV Park -- Dakota Ridge, in Golden, Colorado -- home of Coors Beer and the Colorado School of Mining. This is an urban RV Park, noisy with highway traffic and other city sounds, but attractive and well maintained, with paved roads and site pads and lots of well-tended grass. We're right at the edge of the mountains, the first steep slopes rising within a mile south and west of us. About 70 of the sites have instant phone hookups, although with low bandwidth (28.8kb/s max, but sometimes as low as 16.8kbps), and with restrictions on Internet surfing (only 10 outside lines to support the 70 wired sites, so we're asked to limit our online sessions to 10 minutes.
We'll be here at least two weeks, while we catch up on maintenance tasks and investigate the desirability of the area as a permanent place to settle.
In the evening, we headed for central Denver to attend a concert at St. Elizabeth's Church, on the Auraria Campus in central Denver. The group is St. Martin's Chamber Choir, Timothy Krueger, Artistic Director, a professional ensemble of 22 voices based in Denver. The entire program was music of Charles Wood. Rodney Williams, an expert on Wood's music, was imported from England as the guest conductor for this concert. We had previously heard almost no music by Wood, but we very much enjoy music from his English contemporaries, teachers, and predecessors (Stanford, Howells, Parry, Vaughn Williams, Holst, etc.)
The church is a medium-sized stone structure, apparently with major interior remodeling, perhaps during the art deco era. The sound is bright and resonant -- appropriate for this music.
Wood's output was surprisingly varied, and this concert, with a mixture of romantic pieces in the English partsong tradition and Episcopal liturgical music, never became boring. The choir lived up to its billing as "Denver's foremost chamber choir", giving a polished and satisfying performance.
6/28 Not much to write about during the past two weeks.
We've gone to dinner twice at the Chart House -- about five miles up into the mountains along I-70 southwest of our campground. It's a chain restaurant, but the salad bar is extensive, the steaks, seafood, and wine list are good, the view is good, and it's a convenient location. On one evening, we had a window seat looking out across the valley to a herd of bison grazing on the opposite slope. Much of the land in this area is reserved as parks, with nice views and with hiking trails or primitive roads leading further back into the mountains
On two occasions, Dave has hiked about half a mile south from the campground to a steep rocky ridge which runs for several miles, paralleling highway 40 out to well behind Interstate 70. It's high enough so that the climate and the foliage is distinctly different from our campground. Hundreds of acres east and south of our campground, including this ridge, are reserved by Jefferson County as "open space"
We've spent several afternoons driving around the area, looking at houses and neighborhoods, trying to decide where, and if, we'd like to live here. The range of choices is very broad.
We looked at a house that was on top of a 9000 foot promontory, with views north across Rocky Mountain National Park into Wyoming, east across the plains into Kansas, and southeast to the lights and skyscrapers of downtown Denver. The yard was rocks and alpine flowers amid an open forest of stunted 20'-high spruce and ponderosa pine. It's a nice place, but Helen couldn't do any gardening except in a greenhouse. Even those few things which could be grown outdoors would be instantly eaten by the roving Elk herds. It can snow up here any day of the year. Water for these mountain houses is from wells that are typically 800 feet deep, and keeping a septic system working properly is difficult since there is very little soil among the rocks.
We've also looked at conventional tract houses, built by the thousands on tiny lots on prairie land east of Denver. And we've looked at everything in-between. If we choose to buy here, it will probably be something "in-between". This does seem to be a good time to buy. Because of the softening economy, there are a great many houses on the market, and we hope this means that prices will be dropping.
Our laptop computers, only four years old, are beginning to experience hardware and software problems, and have inadequate speed and inadequate RAM for some of the newer software. We finally decided to buy a pair of new machines, and have ordered from Dell. This means we'll be here another couple of weeks while the machines are manufactured and shipped to us.
The weather has been fairly consistent, with nighttime low temperature around 60 and daytime highs about 90. Almost every day has scattered cumulus clouds and at least some sun, and most days have at least one small thunderstorm passing close enough to see and hear. Perhaps one day out of five has a thunderstorm that actually passes directly over us, yielding intense streaks of lightning, rig rattling thunder, high wind gusts, and brief rain.
One of the quality-of-life issues in selecting a permanent location is the overall quality of the public library system. With this in mind, I applied for a library card at both the Denver and Jefferson County public libraries. At Denver, I went unprepared, having no proof of a local residence address. They issued a temporary card while I waited (actually, just a computer entry which enabled me to use my Texas driver's license as a library card, with restrictions), and mailed the permanent card to my RV Park address (it arrived the next day). When I later went to a Jefferson County branch library, I brought my rent receipt from the RV Park, and was issued a permanent card immediately. Interestingly, they simply put their own bar code sticker on a corner of the Denver library card, so I only have to carry one card.
Jefferson County Library has a wonderful service: I can search their countywide catalog from my home computer, reserve a book (or up to 99 books), and have them sent to the branch library of my choice for pickup. I receive an Email message when the books are available for pickup. We first encountered this system in Monroe County, NY when we lived there (their system would also phone and leave a voice message on our answering machine, as an alternative to EMail.
This system dramatically increased the number of library books that we checked out. Jefferson Country has added an unusual twist to this feature. When I return books to a branch library, these books are shelved at that branch rather than being returned to the branch whence they came. Thus, the County collection rotates through the various libraries with no special effort on the part of the library. Assuming that each branch library has a reasonably homogeneous population with interests somewhat different from that of the populations at other libraries, then over time, each library will automatically acquire a collection that is specialized to the interests of its own population.
It looks like we'll be staying in the Denver area for at least two more weeks. It's been well over a month since our last trip report mailing, so we'll send this off soon, without waiting for a logical break point.