Southern Colorado

I stopped for a night just off I-25 in Walsenburg, an easy town to blink by. It was coal mining town in its glory days. Now its just small, lacking the Victorian splendor of the old silver and gold boomtowns, more Spanish influence with smaller adobe houses and a cute but simple downtown on main drag. I stopped at Bob's Cafe and got into a conversation with a man whose land sale depends on who gets elected president. He says its all about water in that area and water rights were sold off eons ago. One can own hundreds of acres of that rather desolate land and without water it is worthless. They have to drill for it and hope. This man said the economy is not effected by the downturn because they have no economy. They survive by being tough, conservative, independent. This seems to be the usual southern Colorado scenario.

This is really desolate land, long expanses of dry, dry land covered in desert grass, rabbit brush and sage with a few pines dotting the landscape and some aspen on the slopes. The mountains are a big blue shadow in the background. There is beauty, though. It comes in small doses and one has to drive a little way off the highway to find it.
I noticed an unusual number of old railroad boxcars dotting this area. Most seem to serve as sheds but some actually have additions. I didn't see any TV antenaes though. I always wanted to live in one.

Madonna in a bathtub at a small cemetery

I drove over a mountain pass then broke out into the San Luis Valley which is supposed to be 52 miles wide and too long. It stretches flat, flat and long between Salida to the north and Alamosa to the south. They are two different worlds. Salida is the beginning of the area more defined by ski resorts and the vacation homes of Californians. In between is the tiny town of Crestone, crafty, full of character, a place designated as an energy center for attracting aliens.

I am headed for Atonito, way down south, where a fellow I once worked with went to prison for getting drunk and shooting out the windows of the police station. This town is the home of Cano's Castle, not an official tourist attraction but pretty darned amazing nonetheless. The man who built this did so because God told him to, or so they say. They say he's another man with a beef with the government.  He has no material of choice, anything goes. He uses rock, hubcaps, scrap tin roofing. He is best known for flattening out beer cans for siding. It is indeed an amazing creation. I only wish he'd been ordered out to talk to me but, alas....