La Veta and the Highway of Legends

On Tuesday, we drove south on I-25 to Pueblo, where we saw some interesting art at the Sangre de Christo Arts and Conference Center. We particularly liked Liz McCombs, whose art was whimsy and woodsy, almost with a druid look. We also visited El Pueblo History museum. Unfortunately, their new exhibit was not open yet. Pueblo looked run down, a rust belt town. Walsenburg looked very poor.

We continued to La Veta, where we settled in to the Circle the Wagons RV park, well kept, next to the Cuchara River.

The Spanish Peaks are the dominant peak in the area.

La Veta is a very cute artsy community. We were here before the tourist season starts, later in May. We found the restaurants closed, but we we went to the grocery on Main street, where the deli made us sandwiches, and we met Debbie, the owner. The town is on a railway line. There was a tourist train to Alamosa until 2019.

On Wednesday, Sandi had a business Zoom call, and Richard went fishing at the nearby Wahatoya lake. After her meeting, we drove up to Cuchara. We saw many geologic formations, dikes/walls formed by lava making its way through cracks. In downtown Cuchara, which is about one block long, we spoke to the owner of the Dog Bar, who was getting ready to open for the season on Thursday. We visited the Dakota Dukes gift shop, a small shop packed all kinds of stuff, from bows and arrows to clothing, to decorations. We bought ice cream and a soda.

When we got back to La Veta, we started walking down Main Street. We met Emily in the Mercantile, where Richard played ball with her border collie, Woody, who is running for Mayor. Her business is an unusual mixture of gift shop, bar, and a music venue. We are going to miss the music performance Saturday night. She also owns the wine bar across the street. We learned that real estate prices are going up. We met Peggy the librarian, and admired the library. We met the couple who ran the bakery; they are taking the year off; Erica has gone back to teaching math and science. The town has a new school, for 220 students. We met Johnathon, the well known batik artist, and were invited to come back Thursday and visit the gallery. It seems like we have met half of the prominent people in town...... We saw a couple of art centers which were closed that day. Ricky Tims is a famous art quilter, who has a quilt retreat center in town. There is a lot to do in this small town. Perhaps the biggest event is the Celtic music festival in September. The day was cloudy; the rain started around 5 PM.

On Thursday, we drove past Cuchara on the Highway of Legends, using the excellent Travelstory app and audio tour, and drove over 10,000 ft Cuchara pass. We passed a couple of large lakes. We stopped in Stonewall, which has a massive natural sandstone wall. The Stonewall Shopping Bag was recommended, and we had lunch there. The owner, Ellen, was very helpful, and showed us a book of local history. She gave us the business card for Dave Harris, who runs the Cokedale historical museum. We called, and he met us at the museum, and gave us a detailed tour of the museum, which is about the coal industry. 

 Cokedale was a company town. The mines were owned by the Guggenheim family. The coal was brought to Cokedale, where it was baked to remove volatiles such as benzine. The smoke and pollution were horrendous. He showed us the list of names and nationalities of victims of mine disasters; people came there from all over the world, mostly eastern Europe. We continued to Trinidad, where we visited the History Colorado museum, and also the A.R.Mitchell art museum, where they were setting up a new show of contemporary western art. 

 We continued on our tour, visiting the Ludlow massacre site, a UMWA union monument. Someone had left a “Starbucks Workers United” button there, reminding us that unions are still fighting. We then finished driving back to La Veta. This was a good tour of the area.

Friday we drive to Mesa Verde National Park.