October in Monte, 2018 Edition

It’s not just the days that go quickly now. It seems I can watch the leaves change color before my very eyes. 

It’s certainly like that with the aspen in our yard.

The poplars look as if they’re catching fire at their bases.

Inside, it’s getting a little spooky.

So let’s go back out. 

The storm clouds, which have come off and on throughout the days since the equinox, have made for interesting backdrops.

Of course, everything is better with sunshine and blue skies.

I’m pleased to note that autumn does last much longer here in the San Luis Valley than one would have a right to expect at our altitude, but like everything else this year, it’s going to be over with before we know it. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Coming attractions: knit caps and a pea coat.

All photographs Copyright © 2018 by Lawrence Roy Aiken. All rights reserved. Man, it’s been chilly here this week. Someone wanna buy me a hot chocolate?

Getting Random on the Near East Side

I can’t think of a theme here. I only know that I need to tear myself away from the fascinations of far-west side Chapman Park and immediate-east (of Broadway/US 285) Acequia Drive. There are other fine scenes to bear witness to in this town as evidenced by the contents of my photo folders.

One of the busiest intersections in town in a quiet moment. To the left and at the end of the block is the Safeway, one of the two supermarkets in town. Behind me is the Colorado Potato Advisory Committee HQ. Here, I’m looking straight at one of the two liquor stores in town as the sun sets over Second Avenue.

After two years and change, a New Year’s resolution I should get to work on immediately is to broaden my local horizons. Old habits die hard for me, though. With minor variations, I walked the same three-mile route in Colorado Springs for just over nine years before I moved here.

This is probably the best photo I’ll ever get of the moon with this pocket camera. The zoom created an interestingly exaggerated perspective that included the southwest corner of the Carnegie Library at left, and the orange walls of Baldo’s Mexican restaurant one block over and centered.

In Monte Vista I only walk a short length of US 160 as it cuts through the near east side and out west, straying only mere blocks from the main road. The general “metro” area, such as it is for a small-to-mid-sized farming hub, extends several miles north and south. Much of it isn’t pedestrian friendly, of course, but there are still a lot more places my feet can take me than where I’ve already been so many times before. Also, why not drive to Homelake and walk around there, as I’ve been advised to do a few times since I’ve been here?

Looking west by southwest across Second Avenue on a particularly dramatic summer’s evening.

I can see this town filling up just as Colorado Springs did after we moved there in early 2007. It’s good seeing the economic expansion—Monte Vista has come a long way in two years—but I hope it moves at a much slower, far better managed pace than it was in Colorado Springs. 

One can only hope. Meanwhile, let’s savor the energy that comes with improving fortunes. There are fewer empty retail spaces than there were a year ago. We recently got a stretch of US 160 paved. It's a short stretch, and rather hastily and clumsily painted, but I’ll take it. 

The seasonal events were the biggest and best ever this year.

Yes, that’s me rockin’ my Perpetual Tourist attire in the reflection at left, complete with pocket camera.

I’ve always admired E. Sprouse-Rowe’s plate glass paintings, mainly for the energy it takes to go all over the San Luis Valley as she does making her mark. Here, though, we see Ms. Sprouse-Rowe channeling an inner Big Daddy Ed Roth I didn’t know she had. This is her finest illustration work, at least as I’ve seen it in Monte Vista (I don’t go out much.)

Oh, and one more thing. This vast, empty corner space is already open as a fitness center, even as they finish the remodel one bit at a time. Let’s hope this does well.

There’s a new energy even in older establishments like this one.

The Sugar Shack shut down shortly after we got here two years ago. It’s in an inconvenient location for travelers coming off the main road, and competing directly with a very clean and well-appointed gas station/convenience store next door, which also sits at a safer remove from that final bend on the east side where US 160 begins its straight east-west course through town. It’s a shame, but I don’t see how such a place could work. Maybe as a real estate office or somesuch, but not as a food service joint.

Thanks to the same helpful people who blow up my pageviews whenever I post links on the community’s Facebook page, I learned that the big mountain dominating the horizon in back is called Pintada Mountain, though it is often colloquially referred to as Baldy. The fall colors are especially striking this year.

One day I’ll get a really good shot of US 285 as it blazes a straight line north to Saguache. Not today, but I’ll keep at it.

All photographs Copyright © 2018 by Lawrence Roy Aiken. All rights reserved. If it’s worth a beer, drop some change here, and God bless.

A Bumper Crop of Crabapples (Not Cherries)

...but they were this big and red and...ah, never mind. I learned a couple of things, though.

This is the end of the third summer I’ve seen here in Monte Vista, and I don’t remember this many cherries...well, I just learned they’re not cherries. Although there are a surfeit of cherry trees about town, most of them “ornamental” as opposed to functional (this should have been my first clue, come to think of it), what I saw were crabapples. Given the traffic this site gets when I post photos from around town, I am mortified beyond mortification.

There’s nothing to do but update and correct and move on. Something I was especially grateful to learn was the connection between a frost we had that inhibited the fruit-bearing of fruit-bearing trees. Our previous winter was exceptionally warm, so here we are. Aside from learning crabapples from cherries, it’s good to be reminded how much quirks in the weather can affect things.

I can’t explain why I was so taken by the sight of these along my customary walk. My best guess is it’s the contrast between the gentle roundness of the crabapples popping bold red against irregular surfaces. Like this red clay trail...

...among the green blades of grass...

...atop coarse gravel...

...lying vulnerable along a cool, unforgiving sidewalk.

Fortunately, they don’t stick to your shoes, because they can be difficult to avoid, especially on the west side of town.

All photographs Copyright © 2018 by Lawrence Roy Aiken. All rights reserved.

Best of Summer’s End 2018, Part 3: Of Rails, Old Railcars, and One Freshly Painted Locomotive

I know, it’s October already. Time to wrap this series up.

On the plains of eastern Colorado the towns are almost precisely ten miles apart. From Colorado Springs out east-by-northeast, it’s Falcon, Peyton, Calhan, Simla, etc. to Limon and I-70. These towns came up because the old locomotives traversing the line at those altitudes needed water every ten miles, while the passengers and crew shopped or grabbed something to eat during the break. 

At the far higher elevation of the San Luis Valley, the rail line following the Rio Grande apparently only needed the service break every 15 miles, as that is the distance between (east to west-by-northwest) Alamosa, Monte Vista, Del Norte, and South Fork.

Water isn’t much of an issue with today’s modern trains. What to do with old abandoned railcars is, at least here in Monte Vista. They do make for dramatic photos when the light is slanting in just so.

Of course, when the light is not so dramatic, it looks a lot like this. I walk through this area every time I go to drop one of my family’s vehicles off at the auto shop on Broadway, and I’m always impressed by the sheer waste of space in that area just north of US 160 along the western end of Acequia Drive. 

















It’s not just the railcars that have been abandoned. It’s this entire area of town that could serve as another park, if nothing else. No one seems to know what to do with this vast slab of real estate, given over to kochia, piercevine, and litter.

D&RGW stands for “Denver & Rio Grande Western.” The company was founded in 1870 by Col. William Palmer, the same man who founded Colorado’s second largest city, Colorado Springs.

A story from this year in the San Luis Valley is that Adams State University students took over the painting of a locomotive for the San Luis/Rio Grande (SLRG) line. To what end, I do not know (is locomotive painting a major now?), but it does make a nice rolling ad for the institution.

From the same stretch of tracks which serves to pick up the potatoes and other produce in Center to our north, another train makes stops at the warehouses just before the tracks merge with the east-west D&RGW line.

The sun-bleached sign at left warns that there isn’t clearance for anyone hanging on the side of the train once it reaches the warehouses.

Crossing the tracks as they cross US 285/Broadway, looking west to Del Norte. For some reason railcars are often left sitting on the main line, as seen in the distance here.

Someone put a lot of work into this graffiti. I hope the artist went on to better things.

This way to Alamosa, 15 miles.

This way to Del Norte, 15 miles.

Franklin Street crossing.

It just goes on.

All photographs Copyright © 2018 by Lawrence Roy Aiken. All rights reserved. Like what you see? Buy me a tasty, wholesome beverage via PayPal.