But as we continued west and began to climb the Rockies, the terrain and the tree colors changed dramatically. The Aspen trees are starting to turn and are beautiful!
We topped La Veta Pass as 9412 feet and started a long gentle descent into the San Luis Valley to the town of Alamosa, Colorado. We're staying at the Alamosa KOA, one of two rv parks in the area. The other one is the Alamosa Economy RV park, and it is for sale. Let your imagination go with that. We're in the area because the town of Monte Vista, Colorado is 18 miles west of Alamosa, and my mother was born in Monte Vista and I wanted to see her home. We know little of the area in the 1920's, and most of what existed then is gone, but it is worth a shot. We got into Alamosa early this afternoon, so we took a drive into Monte Vista to scope things out. Our first stop was at the Monte Vista Co-op, figuring that if my Moms family were farmers, there might be some old records available.
The records idea didn't pan out, because of a fire that occurred some years ago that destroyed some of the years that we needed. However, I met four great farmers from the area that gave us all the information they could. One of the gentlemen gave me the name and number of a now-retired real estate person that has been in the area all his life, and is one of those "if anyone knows where the house is, he will" fellows. I'll try to contact Sid tomorrow. I enjoyed talking to these guys and I think that they enjoyed talking to me, because they kept telling me that I needed to get some "long pants", and I kept telling them that in California we don't put on long pants until Halloween. They retorted that I wasn't in California.....You just can't get the best of these farmers! They told me that they gather at the co-op every morning at 6:30 and every afternoon at 3 at the "Table of Knowledge". Except for Bob, who was not considered to very smart this afternoon, because he started a pot of coffee and then left for the restroom. Unfortunately, he forgot to put the empty pot under the grounds.....
The boys told me to go to "287, turn north to County Road 7 (7 miles from town), and that's potato country". Well, my Mom's family raised potatoes in the 1920's, so that's where we went. Downtown Monte Vista is undergoing some much needed restoration,
but we found hwy 287, and headed out of town. A cold front was moving in, so the skies were ominous to the north and west,
and we didn't waste much time. We drove both west on CR 7 for a few miles and then east on the same road, looking for something that might look like the farm that Mom described to me. We found several houses that certainly looked like they could have been around in the '20's, but didn't have the nerve to do more than snap a few pix.
As we left CR 7, we passed a school where they were preparing for Friday Night Lights! We couldn't quite figure out why the agricultural spray equipment was stationed at each end of the field, but there was no denying the light poles and the yard markings on the grass!
Just past the school, we saw the remnants of what was once someone's farmhouse. The fields around this place have been converted to "circles", where huge irrigation pipelines rotate in circles and the crops, whether hay or potatoes, is harvested from these circles. This method leaves odd spaces between the circles that have been left natural, and that's where we saw this:
Just some crumbling buildings to remind us of the harsh conditions that people lived and worked in a hundred years ago. It's impossible for us to imagine what it must have been like to live in a sod house, or haul lumber for the new house from the hills miles away. People were a lot tougher then.
BTW, the owners of the RV park provided us with a hot pizza delivered to our door this evening, Thank You Bob and Denise!, and we got to talking about the weather. It's predicted to get down to 19 above tonight, so two things will happen: the water hose will come in tonight so it doesn't freeze, and tomorrow will be the first time for long pants since last July. Sadness runs rampant amongst us. Bob tells us that the park will close next week for the season. He has about 2 weeks to prepare for winter, which consists of very little snow, but -40F and 40 mph winds...Wow! We gotta get out of here!
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