Tonight we are in Raton New Mexico. Raton means mouse in Spanish.
Our first stop was Taos, a town known for its artistic community. I went in exactly two stores. The first was guess what...a quilt ship. The second had public ladies rooms. But I found a nice little gift for the next door neighbor who takes care of our animals!
At the quilt shop I found the last two fabrics for my own quilt. A tan and white print for the back, it is a 108 inch wide fabric! The other was a medium brown tiny print that looks like a parquet wood floor. The print is so small that won't matter and it will be a good binding for the quilt! So I have all of the fabrics now: dusty blue bandana, dusty green bandana, golden tan petroglyphs, medium brown for the binding and tan and white for the back!
Elizabethtown was a disappointment, the little bit that was left was surrounded my modern stuff.
Colfax was very obviously a former rail road town. One of the structures is an old passenger car, another was most likely a box car. That was the marker for the turn off for the road to Dawson.
Dawson is now privately owned but our books told us that the cemetery is worth going to so we did. Dawson was a coal mining town. It is notable for the approximately 400 white metal crosses in the cemetery, victims of mining accidents in 1913 and 1923. The victims of those two accidents were put together in the same area. One of the authors of one of the books says that this is a good way to think about the fact that ghost towns aren't just buildings and mining equipment and holes in the ground. It helps us think about the people there. He was right. I walked up and down a couple of the rows, reading the names. It really is food for thought! My husband and I have also seen the monument at the site of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. There they have a chair for each of the victims of that explosion. There are twice as many graves in the Dawson cemetery, but it isn't really remembered by anyone but historians.
I think that tomorrow that at least one of the towns on our plan is a coal town. I want to see if I can get a few fist size chunks of the stuff.
I'm off to argue, ahem, discuss, with my husband, which of us is going across the parking lot to the Dairy Queen to get corn dogs and ice cream for dinner!
My husband is my best friend.
In forgiving others, we are not exonerating them. They may not deserve exoneration. Rather, in forgiving others we are giving up our anger over the fact that what happened is not what "should" have happened or that our life is not the way it "should" have been.
It's sad that Dawson isn't remembered by many people. But now you will remember them... and i'm sure there are other tourists that also think about them! *hugs* I'm so jealous of your trip! Are you taking photos????
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
Sorry it has taken so long. That is the link to the photo album that my husband Philip is doing with our digital camera.
My husband is my best friend.
In forgiving others, we are not exonerating them. They may not deserve exoneration. Rather, in forgiving others we are giving up our anger over the fact that what happened is not what "should" have happened or that our life is not the way it "should" have been.
Salinas Pueblo (think that was the name) is my favourite. They are all such stunning, yet simple constructs. To think of the history, events, people that those buildings and sites witnessed is awesome. Thank you for sharing x
The person in the ruin of a church is me. I was standing there awe struck then saw the impatient look on Philip's face so got out of the way!
My husband is my best friend.
In forgiving others, we are not exonerating them. They may not deserve exoneration. Rather, in forgiving others we are giving up our anger over the fact that what happened is not what "should" have happened or that our life is not the way it "should" have been.
Not a lot to report today. Good thing too since I'm on a very slow phone modem. Drove through one town with a few empty buildings but not anything worth photographing. Took back roads to Pueblo Colorado to get more film and for me to check out a bead store. I now have a strand of white square cats eye beads. I may use them in my SI bracelet that I've made for myself. Apologies to Tony.
So we drove though little farming towns as we crossed the prairie, looking at the crops in the fields and being absolutely clueless about what they were.
Now we are in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. We have a list of places to look at or at least look for tomorrow. Driving through the back country is part of the fun and beauty of photographing ghost towns.
My husband is my best friend.
In forgiving others, we are not exonerating them. They may not deserve exoneration. Rather, in forgiving others we are giving up our anger over the fact that what happened is not what "should" have happened or that our life is not the way it "should" have been.
To get to the mining towns we wanted to explore today we drove up a route on the map that was marked scenic! It was beautiful! Its name is Phantom Canyon. The road had so mild a slope that I wondered out loud to Philip if it had been the route of an old railroad. He didn't think so. Then we got to an educational poster...I didn't have to say anything. The road wound up the canyon with evergreens on the slopes and willow and oaks along the creek. When we got hight we got to the level of the aspen trees. The trunks are white and the pale green heart shaped leaves just flutter in the light and whisper to themselves and they are beautiful!
We went to an outdoor mine exhibit. It had some of the old mining equipment, a head frame which in the old days was used to transport men, equipment and rock from the bottom of the mine to the surface. They also had an old ore cart. Then from the top of the mountain, about 10700 feet high, we could also see a modern mining operation where basically the whole mountain is taken apart to get the gold out of it. Philip also got a photo of the truck with 10 foot tires that was hauling the rock.
The route we took around the little mining communities and from the city where we are staying and back again is called the Gold Belt Tour. It is such a beautiful area. I don't think I'd care to live there though. The town of Cripple Creek is about 9400 feet high and the outdoor mine exhibit was even higher. Philip helped me to the car when I felt faint at mine exhibit.
Philip and I had an argument this afternoon about car repair. We ended up screaming at each other a couple of times. I think we needed it though. We've both been wound up a bit.
Oh yea, a warning, I asked Philip to take a photo of me so y'all could see it. Philip should have the photos updated by, lessee, it is 7pm here, they should be up by 10pm so 10+ 7 = 5am UK time. I can also add in base 60, great skill for travel time and for latitude longitude. I refuse to be ashamed of adding on my fingers! I am fat, oh well. I'll let Philip decide which photo to put up. Sorry, I don't have one of him. He is totally in charge of the cameras this trip.
As I write this, Philip is getting dinner and I'm looking from the window of our upstairs motel room up into the rocky mountains via Royal Gorge through which the Arkansas River flows. The snow pack in the Rocky mountains has melted so fast that the river is in flood, expected to peak Wednesday night! I don't think it will cause very much damage. Hope y'all don't mind the bit about the river. I'm totally interested in them. The first part of the title of my MA thesis was "Land Use, Runoff, and Flooding..."
My husband is my best friend.
In forgiving others, we are not exonerating them. They may not deserve exoneration. Rather, in forgiving others we are giving up our anger over the fact that what happened is not what "should" have happened or that our life is not the way it "should" have been.
More Photos! We were at 10700 feet and not long after Philip took the photos of me, a storm dropped some ice, probably hail, on our windscreen.
My husband is my best friend.
In forgiving others, we are not exonerating them. They may not deserve exoneration. Rather, in forgiving others we are giving up our anger over the fact that what happened is not what "should" have happened or that our life is not the way it "should" have been.
Today we traveled a lot. We went the long way over the San Juan Mountain. We traveled over three passes that were at least 10,000 feet above sea level. The San Juan Mountains are just another part of the Rocky Mountains.
Crossing the San Juan mountains was uh exciting? There is one road that had never bothered me until now. It was so bad that I announced to my husband that I was not safe to drive and took a half dose of my anti psychotic, as prescribed. It is called the million dollar highway because that is what cost to build it, more than a century ago!
We stopped at a ghost town we'd never even heard of before, Ironton. It was raining and snowing in the mountains and I was nervous about road conditions and the fog and clouds made it difficult to see things. We are talking about coming back for a few days in September when some of the streams will be back to trickles. There are so many things we say that somehow we'd missed before.
Most of the streams and rivers coming out of the Rocky Mountains are in flood stage because the snow is melting so quickly. We stopped at a boardwalk that overlooks the Arkansas River. The water was moving so fast that it was dizzying, and totally brown with silt. The only streams that weren't were the ones in the San Juan Mountains, and those are colored by cyanide, mercury and other chemicals from the mining processes. The Environmental Protection Agency wasn't around when the mining was done a century ago.
My husband is my best friend.
In forgiving others, we are not exonerating them. They may not deserve exoneration. Rather, in forgiving others we are giving up our anger over the fact that what happened is not what "should" have happened or that our life is not the way it "should" have been.
My husband is taking the photos. I'll let him know, thank you.
My husband is my best friend.
In forgiving others, we are not exonerating them. They may not deserve exoneration. Rather, in forgiving others we are giving up our anger over the fact that what happened is not what "should" have happened or that our life is not the way it "should" have been.
