39 Days, 10 States, 2 Kids – Colorado
He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Coming home to a place he’d never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door
When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hanging by a song
But the string’s already broken and he doesn’t really care
It keeps changing fast and it don’t last for long
But the Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullabye
Rocky mountain high (Colorado)
Songwriters: John Denver / Mike Taylor Rocky Mountain High lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Reservoir Media Management Inc, BMG Rights Management
Nothing makes you appreciate the beauty of the mountains on the horizon like spending days driving through the plains. Speaking from the perspective of the motorist who knows that there are already roads over said mountains. Although we are not taking the paved roads, we know the route up and over already exists. We’ve seen it on YouTube.
It does make me imagine what the first European explorers, coming from the east, must have thought when the huge peaks came into view rising from the horizon. Even at the sight of the mountains, they would still have a days travel before reaching the base.
If I were them, I would have thought “First it was that wide ass Mississippi River and that jackass ferryman, then weeks of plain windy nothingness, now this! How in the F#%k are we supposed to get over those?” Just thinking out loud.
It also makes me wonder what the people who had already been living here for over 10,000 years thought when they saw the explorers. If I were them, I probably would have thought, “It’s just a group of pale little men, I’ll take their shiny tokens and let them pass. Whats the worst that could happen.”
Speaking of “the worst that could happen”, before climbing into the mountains, we stopped at a group of abandoned buildings along the gravel road at Ludlow, CO. This is the place where the Rockefeller owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I), and the Colorado State Militia faced off against striking miners on April 20th, 1914 in what became known as the Ludlow Massacre.
The Ludlow camp is a mass of charred debris, and buried beneath it is a story of horror imparalleled [sic] in the history of industrial warfare. In the holes which had been dug for their protection against the rifles’ fire the women and children died like trapped rats when the flames swept over them. One pit, uncovered [the day after the massacre] disclosed the bodies of 10 children and two women.
New York Times, April 21, 1914
What happened at Ludlow remains one of the bloodiest episodes in American labor history. At least sixty-six men, women, and children were killed in the attack and the rioting that followed.
While not near as dramatic, another dispute also arose here inside of Jethro, as a territorial battle began to rage between the kids over back seat boundary lines. “Keep your stuff on your side” Jake declared; “You shouldn’t have brought Cowboy”. “He’s right Alli, we told you to leave that big ass animal at home” I hollered “One more word from either of you, and I’m throwing all of your shit out the window!”
Clearly, we were finished having a somber moment thinking of the lives lost where we now sat.
As the kids continue to push and shove and make kid sounds in the back seat, I concluded “Shut up! Sounds count too! I don’t want to hear shit from back there or they are going out the damn window! All of them!”
I put Rocky Mountain High on the radio again. Lets go see the damn mountains.
During the process of making, double checking, and correcting our route on the computer over the previous winter, I came across cool little things that are pinned on Google Maps when you are zoomed in enough. First there were the dino tracks in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma, and along this section was a pin noting Lough Icelandics.
Driving along and enjoying the scenery I forgot about it and passed up the pin that I had added to our map. Realizing it soon enough, we turned back to go find these magical Icelandic ponies. Trouble is, there was no sign along the road for the place. I remember them having a website, and it said visitors were ok, but at this point we have no cell service whatsoever.
After driving up a couple of sketchy gravel roads and finding nothing but fences and cabins, we went to a campground and asked a lady working there. She assured us we were in the right area. Just take a left out of the campground and it will be the next drive on the right. It wasn’t exactly.
The next drive was a road, not a driveway, not that you could really tell the difference. On the road the first “driveway” was a dirt two track path through a gate and into a field. Across the field and behind some other fencing we could see shaggy horses. It was them.
The driveway was blocked by a piece of construction equipment and a dump truck. There is a lot of gas pipeline work going on throughout these mountains so we had already become accustomed to seeing construction equipment. We drove to the end of the road and, finding no other way into the area where we saw the horses, we backtracked and asked the construction workers. They understood the word horses it seemed, and they pointed a lot. Moving the front loader out of our way, we proceeded through the gate and across someones field, hoping it was the right place, and we wouldn’t be shot for trespassing.
The dirt two track trail wound out of the open fields and into a wooded area. At this point we can no longer see the gravel road or any other houses. We came to another open gate with a log house just beyond and a lot of cars and some farm equipment. Nope, not going in there. I sat there for a minute to ponder, because I know she wants to see the horses, but I’m just not wanting to go up to that house.
I turned Jethro around and started heading out. The complaints mounted immediately from both of the kids. “Just go knock on the door” Alli says; “Alli really wants to see the horses dad” Jake chimes in. Both of them in super whiny mode. “I’m not knocking on the door, you go knock on the door” I inform them. They devise a plan – Alli will knock and Jake will go up there with her, and I get parent of the year for sending the kids up to knock on the door of a cabin in the middle of nowhere Colorado.
I stood at the base of the porch steps while the kids went up, through the clothes hanging from a clothes line on the porch, and knocked on the door. A chicken jumped out from under the porch, just to add to the strangeness of the situation. No one came. They walk around the porch to a sliding glass door, and knock on it. Catching Jake putting his hands and face to the glass, I holler “Jake, no! I don’t know what you might see in there, but you will not be able to unsee it.”
Then a woman opened the door and looked at us confused. She hadn’t been feeling well and we apparently woke her. No problem, she assured us, just give her five or ten minutes and she’d come show us the horses.
“Get in your car and follow me. When we get to the gate, I’m going to drive into the field, but you should walk” the lady told us. “You can drive in the field if you want, but the horses will chew on your car.” We then noticed that her drivers mirror was hanging by the wires, and part of the rear spoiler was missing. Okay, we’ll walk.
Stopping before the gate, the horse lady showed us some horses near a fence in a partially wooded area. She explained the rarity of the Icelandic horses, something about a stud, and all kinds of horse stuff that only Alli understood. The horses also appeared to start breeding. Look away kids, have some decency for Christ’s sake. After that show we drove to a gate into a large pasture. There were several horses, as well as ponies that were only a week or so old.
The horses had a pretty pasture to roam with a creek (Apishapa River) running through it . The stream was mostly dry, and this was a problem that they were having throughout the region. They would have to buy hay for the horses if the creek does not provide enough water to irrigate the fields.
Oh, yeah, so horses kind of scare me. Not like I have nightmares about them, or run away screaming when I see them. I know they are not going to jump out of the woods and bite my spine in half like a mountain lion or anything. They are just big, and animals, and I don’t like to be where they can kick me. Mostly, I don’t want them to do anything crazy while Alli is riding them. Alli loves them though, so here we are surrounded, on their turf.
The horse lady moved to Colorado from Germany, where she was a veterinarian. She told us she moved here due to the weather, and possibly politics or taxes. It wasn’t very easy to understand what she was saying. A man showed up that she shared the land with. He was from Oregon, or Pennsylvania. I probably should have wrote this sooner. Anyway, he was a nice man. Retired electrician who had lived and worked all over the country. He settled here for the quiet, and view. We ended up being at the horse ranch for a couple of hours, talking and enjoying the views and horses before heading back onto our trail.
In Oklahoma a day earlier, Kari casually mentions, I think I saw a bear back there. “A bear?” I ask. “Yea, a bear. You should turn around.” We were moving along at around 45 mph, so by the time we had our little chat, I stopped, turned around, and drove back to where she thinks she saw it, but by then the bear decided to retire to somewhere nice. We didn’t see it.
Back on gravel now, Kari says loud and definitively enough for me to slow down “There’s a bear”. The black bear walked quickly out of a stream and headed away from the road. Everyone freaked out when I got the actual camera out (instead of the phone) to take a picture (they didn’t want to miss this one like we did the day before). They thought I was going to get out and follow the bear and ask for a picture or something.
Climbing out of the valley and further into the mountains, we found a side trail into the woods where we could have lunch. Bear still on our minds, we were quieter than normal while we ate at first, then the kids started being kids again. On the trail again, we passed through a thin rock wall that jutted out of the mountain, then up to Cordova Pass.
Lunch Break. 
Apishapa Arch
At 11,260′ Cordova Pass in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is one of the highest mountain passes we would go over on this trip. There are hiking trail heads at the pass, and we decided to go for a hike up the West Spanish Peak Trail. We spoke with some returning hikers before heading up the trail to learn that it is a hard 8 mile hike that gains over 2,600 feet in elevation. We decided to try and make it up to near the treeline, or how ever far we could get, one-way, in an hour.
Breathing is hard up here. We hiked for a couple of hours and got our tired selves back in Jethro bound for La Veta, CO
The La Veta Inn is an interesting old hotel that the new owners are fixing up, but have already started renting before completion. As such, it is a little like staying in an old run down hotel that you found and broke into, except the power is on, and you have to pay $100. We did not see anyone other than the owner, a nice guy that would appear from nowhere. It wasn’t too scary, and our alternative was our emergency tent, so we settled in.
There didn’t seem to be many food options, so we walked down an ally to a pizza place that conveniently had a liquor store next to it. Beer and carry out pizza in our abandoned hotel courtyard was for dinner, followed by some billiards in the lounge, aka random, partially lit room with a pool table and a bunch of chairs.
Sleeping lightly due to the sound of the window air cycling on and off, and knowing there were no smoke detectors in this old ass wooden building, I’m pretty sure I saw the ghost of a child in our room. The child was not loud and annoying though, which was a relief enough for me to get a few hours of decent sleep.
With Great Sand Dunes National Park being close enough to the trans America trail, and Crestone, CO having better Airbnb options than Westcliffe, CO, we revised our route to be able to visit the Dunes.
We got to the dunes somewhat early, before the sun turned the sand in to a foot melting experience. We realized, once there, that there was a place that we passed on the road a ways back where you could rent boards for sledding and sand boarding. “We aren’t going back now kids, if you want to do it, you better go make some friends.” First, Jake tried cardboard that someone left behind. It was a total failure. Then Alli spotted some unattended boards on the next sand hill over. Feeling like I had already walked across the entire Sahara, I declined and sent the kids with instructions to try and find the people and ask before borrowing their stuff.
Before the kids made it up the next hill the people returned and started using the boards again. Alli and Jake made friends and were starting to take turns so we sucked it up and walked over there. You have to scrape the bottoms of the boards and wax them every run to get any speed. They each did it a few times and while they loved it, they longed for a chair lift.
We hopped back in Jethro and headed down a loose sand trail which was limited to 4×4’s, with enough clearance to make it. As such, there were not many people and we were able to find a nice spot to have lunch and let the kids play in the sand. Kari hates sand, at least in the house or vehicles, so it is a good thing we are selling Jethro after the trip.
In Crestone, CO, we found a dome house on Airbnb that was pretty cool and had good views of the mountains. Still having plenty of daylight, we hiked up a creek, accidentally destroyed someones bridge, let the kids join a sidewalk band, and had dinner.
Nestled at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Crestone seems to be a spiritual community where everyone is high. It wasn’t a problem at all, just an observation.
As John Denver says
“It’s Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
Friends around the campfire and everybody’s high”
Tomorrow we cross the Continental Divide, and when Jake pees in the stream it will flow to the Pacific Ocean, or, more likely, get diverted to irrigate your strawberries.
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