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....

Bishop's Castle

Bishop's Castle is one man's dream located close to Colorado City and Rye. This castle is constructed of local stone that has not come without conflict because much came from Forest Service land...or so the story goes. The man who built it has not forgotten those days and has several board-displays covered with rants about how the government tried to stop him. If I was inclined to take sides I'd likely join up with him. He is still building, always improving in his own way, and his castle has become quite a tourist attraction, though a quirky one.

The castle is constructed mostly of stone and iron. There are a couple towers, one purported to be 100' tall. Inside the towers are narrow winding staircases with open windows one couuld fall through and, at the top, iron walkways between the two towers. I got brave and climbed the taller tower, elevating my heartbeat all the way to my throat where it got good and stuck. I made it to the walkway very near the top. I could hear the really brave folks in the cage atop the other tower talking about how it shakes. Nobody stayed there very long. A good dozen years ago I came here and actually did the whole thing, walkways and all, with a seven year old boy. I'm older, wiser and much less brave now.

Proof that I made it to the top.

Paxico Antiques

I think Kansas might be more interesting if more towns were visible from the interstate. Just as I was getting restless with the drive, I saw a small sign for Paxico antiques. I took the exit and immediately found myself on a narrow dirt road that seemed to go nowhere. I followed it as it climbed over a railroad track, skirted some fields and eventually led me to the most amazing little town, itself an antique. Paaxico's main drag has a delightful row of old clapboard stores from a way-back western era. Lots of antique stores.

I met a fellow named Wayne Ervin and struck up a conversation. The next thing I knew I was being given the "five cents tour" of his little museum called WANO. This is a neatly arranged display of some of his own collections: cameras and projectors, tiny toy cars of metal, posters, even his wife's old dolls. In the next room he'd built displays from the recent wars in the Middle East, the Pinkertons, his own uniform from the Vietnam era, even a space devoted to the hippies at his wife's request. These are all interesting but let me tell you about his dinosaurs.

He has a friend who builds dinosaur displays and other neat dino stuff (google: Dino Jim Boydston). He built dinosaurs for his friend, Wayne, who painted a backdrop and set them up. They are made of foam, large, colorful and fairly realistic in an animation sense. I was fascinated, charmed and impressed all at once.

The next time anyone finds themselves driving through Kansas complaining of boredom...look again. and don't forget to look up Wayne and his museum in Paxico. He is an interesting character with many a good story and his museum is a gem. Don't miss it...and check out the antique shops while you're at it

Exploring Kansas

I keep hearing people talk about how boring it is to drive through Kansas. Not so. Eastern Kansas is beautiful, hilly but not quite mountainous, wooded, but still lots of pastureland. I don't think I've seen so many shades of green in one area. This morning, the sky was heavily clouded in several angry shades of grey.

Then on to central Kansas, rolling farmland with the focus no longer wheat but looking to ethanol. This is a study of many shades of gold. This is post rock country. Yes, post rock. Around the turn of the last century, someone discovered that the rock strata in Kansas was easily cut and quarrying that rock became big business. There are many old buildings still around that are built from that rock...and there are still fence posts, whole rows of them. There are indeed trees in Kansas, Dorothy, but apparently not enough.

East Kansas is flat and gold-ish but I am so tired of flat and gold. Eastern Colorado is even worse. There is is tinted grey-green with rabbit brush and even that is sparce. It goes on and on. I can't wait to get to Denver.

Westward Bound

I started out early in a rented mini van with too many bells and whistles. The usual route takes me through Hot Springs, North Carolina, but there was a detour that skirted it. I always wondered about that little road that ran alongside a river, through morning-misty mountains and rolling fields, finally connecting with the highway coming into Newport. Its a beautiful drive and I'm glad I was finally forced to try it.

There is nothing particularly notable about interstate highways. They do tend to change from state to state but not enough to excite me. I drove through southern Illinois and stopped at a little gas station/cafe at an unknown crossroad. It was tiny, the only other building was a barn with 'antiques' painted on the side of it and a fairly new tractor parked in front. Surrounding this whistle stop was rolling cropped-corn pasture land and the highway with its border of green weeds shaded with the muted purple and pale gold of grasses going to seed. At least there are trees here. I could be in Kansas.

Battered pickles...gotta love 'em!

At the cafe, I was served a very good cheeseburger that tasted like real meat served by an ever-smiling young lady who was minding her dad's store. I was curious about a sign for batter dipped pickles and asked the older woman behind the counter what she thought of them. She doesn't like them, she told me, but I couldn't see surviving another year of life without trying them out. So I did. They were indeed strange but couldn't have been too bad because I ate them all.

Then I drove on snapping only a couple photos on my way of the St. Louis arch as the sun was going down. What do I like most about driving west at 70 mph? The sunsets that go on forever!

Till Later...

I am home for now, temporarily out of steam. Check back in Mid-September when I plan to make a quick trip to Colorado.

A Rare Opportunity

There were a good many nations invited to take part in the Kucukcekmece Lake festival. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of meeting at least one native from most of those present. As much as I've heard about Palestinians on the news, I've never met or conversed with a Palestinian or Philistine. At one of the events where the groups all mingled in costume, this dancer and I decided we really needed to take a picture together since we were carrying flags that aren't often found together. Call it our own little political statement. Then we did something typically female and non-political: we shared a recipe.