Last day in Denver before the ride home started...

On our last full day in Denver we went shopping in the morning and ate lunch. After lunch Dora and Sam stayed at home and Carlos had a dinner date with friends. So Roje, Elfida and I went to the Greeley area to visit some of the places we use to go to when we worked in the fields some 40 years ago. It was a nice mellow trip filled with great conversation.
Along the way we passed some areas that were still very vivid in my mind and some that I had totally forgotten. Roje's recollection was better than mine and helped bring back memories of these long forgotten places.
We drove to downtown Greeley and found the park where our parents use to take us every Sunday. There were many changes made through the so many years that have passed. We found the old store where we would go buy sodas and candy while at the park. It was located about half a block away, I don't remember that name of the store but we use to call it "La tienda de los chicanos". It translates to "the chicano's store". It was one of the few businesses that were owned by Mexicans or as my parents called them "chicanos" to differentiate them as being U.S. born. They spoke Spanish and sold many of the products that we were use to buying in Texas.

The park is still here but it has changed too. We drove around remembering where the playground use to be, where our parents would congregate with the other parents, and where the older teenagers would hangout. It is still a beautiful park. Our families would work in the fields all week long, Monday through Saturday, but on Sundays we would meet at the park. We played with the other kids, many who's names I couldn't recall and had to ask Roje. I would start with a description of them or retelling of an event that occurred at the park and Roje would start naming the kids, their siblings and parents. Our parents would meet and exchange information about working conditions, areas that were needing field laborers and most important information about the farmers. Which farmer treated the workers fair, which ones paid well and which ones were willing to take advantage of the workers.
On this day thunder storms had visited the area ahead of us. There were still some rain puddles on the streets and a nice chill in the air. Perfect weather for walking the downtown area.

When we drove by this building, I immediately recognized it. This is where they use to have the Mexican dances. On Saturday night you would find most of the young migrant workers here. I was too young to be interested in dances, but I do remember going inside once during a wedding. I remember they had a band that played nothing but polkas and no singer. Every song sounded just like the one before. Not much has changed for this old building except maybe its use on Saturday nights.

Roje's memory was so sharp that he was able to guide me to this old house. We lived here for a few seasons in the late 60's and early 70's. This was Henry's farm. The house had two bedrooms and a kitchen. My dad build an enclosure behind the house which we used as a shower area. The outhouse was located about 100 feet behind the house. That old wood fence next to the house use to be part of a huge corral where they kept about 100 cattle. Everything smelled like cow dung. We use to go to town on Sunday nights and my mom would do laundry there because you couldn't hang anything outside because by morning everything would smell like the corral. The farmer lived across the driveway from us and they were use to the smell.

When we got to this farm house we parked across the drive way right were the farmer use to live. That house is now gone. The older two-story house is still there, it is located about 200 feet farther into the property. The lady that now lives there was on her way to church, I went to her and asked her if she would allow me to photograph the house. Roje came up too and we told her how we use to live here many years ago. She was very friendly and talked to us for about 20 minutes. She ended up leaving late for church. We walked around the house, it looked so small.

We drove back to Greeley and decided to find a place to eat dinner. It was late already and it was now a little colder than just chilly. We ate at the Rio Grande Cafe. The food was excellent and the waitress extremely friendly. They also had great coffee or maybe it was the cold weather in the middle of summer, something we, who live in central Texas, are no longer use to.

Dinner was great and the restaurant was nice and quiet and lent itself well to us carrying a long conversation. Before we knew it we had been there about two hours, it was getting dark and the weather was looking more menacing. This photo is of the sugar processing plant in Eaton, Colorado. This was our mediator in any disputes between the farmers and the migrant workers. I remember it as being way bigger than this. It is closed now and abandoned. The processing is now done somewhere else.

We stared back to Denver. It was almost dark. We were still deep in conversation about the years long ago when we were kids. About the times spent chasing rabbits through the alfalfa fields, chasing mice in the silos, or riding down the dusty farm road in Roje's motorcycle. The old McDonald's is still there. That was our Saturday lunch stop. Oh we loved going there, I don't know if my parents thought the food was as great as we did, but they took us there because we liked those little burgers and over salted fries so much.

As we neared the Greeley city limits I thought I could here a whining sound. At first I thought it was my mp3 player and lowered the volume on it, but the sound was coming from outside. To our surprise, it was the severe weather warning sirens going off! The sky ahead of us was cloudy but not threatening and I could only see a small part of the sky behind us through the side mirrors on the truck. That sky was black, long gnarly bright bolts of lightning would surge from the clouds and strike the ground. Memories came back of the times we would scramble to the huge potato cellars, when the radio would announce that a tornado was seen somewhere near. The storms stayed over Greeley, it took about 15 minutes to out run them, but we made it back to Denver well past ten at night. The time had come to start packing. We were hoping to leave at five or six in the morning. Ahead laid a 14 hour drive back home.

Another Day on the road....

Well, we made it to Denver! We woke up early and headed to the mountains. Carlos, my brother, went with us. He was our guide. We had just started up the paved mountain road when we met a bear!!! Right in the middle of the road. That is lucky, yeah, that we got to see a real bear and that we happened upon it while we were safely inside our vehicle.

There was so much to see, but we had to get to the mining towns early enough so that we could make it back to the Cog railroad train and take the trip up to Pikes Peak. From here you can see Colorado Springs in the back ground. I don't know how high we were but its a long ways down.

The road was an old wagon road, not very wide. When coming to a tunnel or a sharp curve, okay, any curve, Carlos told me to honk so if anyone else was coming from the other direction they would know we were there. Okay, they have some real idiots out there driving way to fast for this little roads. Anyways, we came upon this tunnel and got out to take pictures. It is so cool, carved out right through that mountain.

We made it to the first town and got out to explore. We missed a lot of good photo ops on the way. See the hills in the back ground?
They use to be mountains that were mined for many years. When GW Bush says that oil drilling in Alaska or in the gulf won't destroy the environment, just remember those hills. Anytime you exploit an area you end up with destruction.

Here is a better example of what happens when greed exceeds concern for our planet. That is huge, it is the rubble that was dug from the mountain then dumped over and use to create a dead mountain. Nothing will grow for a few hundred years. Just remember that when a politician calls himself or herself conservative, they are all for conserving their dollars not the environment.

Isn't that beautiful.

This is what a small mountain look like before mining begins.

That is one of the trains that takes people up to Pike's Peak. The trip up is slow. You can see the middle rail which is where the cog under the car connects to the ground. That is the only traction that the train has to climb up the mountain.

This area gets so much snow that trees don't grow. There are plenty of animals up here though. We were so high up that we were level with the clouds. It wasn't raining, we just ran into the drops before they fell.

This is awesome. You can the the mountains, the clouds and way back, you can see where the sun is shining.

When we got to the top of the mountain, it was snowing!! July 1st. and it is snowing!! Boy, was it cold. Elfida was out there for a few minutes then went inside the souvenir shop where it was warm. She even bought a pair of gloves.

Here they are mugging an old miner. They sold all kinds of souvenirs, most made in China.

Sam was so excited about being up here, he didn't even notice the cold. He ran around all over taking pictures. I finally got him to sit down and took his picture.

He was so excited, I thought he was going start singing "Rocky Mountain High".

The clouds moved higher that us and the snow and rain stopped.

That is the train that took us up here. Sam was still somewhere taking pictures.

I like this shot. What a bunch of tourist.

Sobering moment.

What thoughts come to mind when you are so high up, so close to heaven?

Deer enjoying the warm weather, the green grass and the clean air. Oh yeah, that is snow.

This little guy didn't seem too happy to see all us tourist invading his home.

That is the old steam engine that use to take the tourist up the mountain many decades ago. Yes, that is me. Sam took the picture.

We stopped and ate at TGI Friday's, spent about two hours talking and made it home at about 11:30 PM. Tired, very tired, but very happy to have been so high.

Day 5 - Going to Colorado

We slept late till about 0800 AM and then went back to a Mexican restaurant we had been to the day before. The food was very good and the prices were reasonable. Roje liked the friendly waitresses there. After eating Dora and Elfida looked at the map and picked a route to Colorado. We were about 8 miles out of Santa Fe when they decided they wanted to go through Taos so we turned around went back to Santa Fe and then north.

We made it to the Rio Grande again and stopped. It was carrying more water this time and we couldn't find a way down to its bank.

I found this relative of the dandelion. It was huge!! I tried to climb the side of one of the hills but it was too steep and the rocks to loose. There were to many prickly plants too and I didn't want to slide into them.

We stopped at a tourist center and as I was walking to the building I saw this cloud growing from behind the hills. It was awesome. It kept getting bigger and bigger. You could actually see it growing.

We took a detour just past Taos, Dora and Elfida insisted on letting Sam see the Royal Gorge, but I think they just wanted to go buy hand made jewelry from the vendors that sell their stuff there at the bridge. Anyways I found this two butterflies and spent about 10 minutes trying to get a perfect shot. I never did because a crow came over insisting that I feed it.

This is the guy. He was very aggressive and persistent that I fed it. He came up to within a foot of me and I would put the camera right to its head. He started scratching just like our parrot use to do. Boy he needed some lotion on them feet. Now I know why they call wrinkles next to the eyes "crow feet".

Yeah, he got close enough that I was able to photograph the inside of its mouth. I had never seen the inside of a crow's mouth. Interesting.

It took us about six hours to travel about 200 miles. We stopped at too many places. We finally made it to Colorado!!
Elfida was stretching her legs by taking a walk along the interstate. Now she can say she walked from New Mexico to Colorado.
We were talking about the Huerfano and telling Same about it. Roje insisted we had passed it already. When we saw it he made a bet with Elfida that we had passed it already and that this one wasn't it. So we stopped at its marker. Roje lost the bet.

I remember this long dirt roads that lead to the farms from when we use to come work in the fields. A little past this road we saw a bear on the side of the road. By the time I made a U-turn he had disappear. We made it to Denver at about 0930 PM. We did stop to eat before getting to Denver and broke the "no burgers" rule. We were to tire to eat at a regular restaurant.

to be continued....

Going to Bandelier Park

Ok, we are back in Waco already. I got way behind on my blogging. We were staying out to late and I was too tired from all the hiking and sightseeing to get on my blog at night. The time I spent awake at the hotel was spent in the swimming pool and the Jacuzzi. Anyways, here we go with the pictures of our trip. This was day number 4.
We got up early and raided the continental breakfast at the hotel. Taking with us apples, bananas, yogurts, etc. for our trip to Bandalier Park. We also stopped at a grocery store and bought water, sodas, cookies and other munchies. We got to Bandelier and did not meet the huge crowds that we had read about on their brochures. As we prepared all the equipment for our hike, Elfida noticed a deer spying on us from the edge of the parking lot. This area had too many visitors and the animals are not scared by humans. We filled the camelbacks with water, loaded up our pockets with corn nuts, trail mix, cookies, apples and bananas, got our walking sticks and headed out. Roje, not into hiking decided to hang out at the visitor's center and to check out the areas close to there.

Sam, Dora, Elfida and I decided to take the long hike to the Aclove House which was a couple of miles from the visitor's center. The hike was easy with no climbs. When we got to the Alcove House we gathered courage to climb the wooden ladders to the caves. Elfida was thinking of waiting at the top of the first climb, but then saw a pregnant woman climbing down one of the ladders and decided if she could do it so could Elfida.

Dora and Sam took of on one of the path not facilitated by ladders. The drop from there wasn't to far but the rocks would scrape all the skin of any exposed part of the body.

There was a series of steps carved into the rock that you use to get to the ladders. The steps have metal hand railings but the steps are only about 10 inches wide. Only one person can be on them and they are used for going up and coming down. You had to kind of stand on the slanted rock or straddle the railing to let people go past you. There were four ladders you had to climb to get to the Aclove. the first one was about 18 feet long, followed by a 40 ft., then a 16 ft. and then a 12 ft. ladder. It was scary going up and thinking of having to climb down the same ladders was even scarier. However, we found that once you start coming down it is actually easier. There were some little kids there running up and down the ladders. Darn kids!

On our way back on the trail we stopped for a potty break and met Mr. Squirrel. He was guarding the restroom. No fear.

On the way back we took the trail that follows the cliffs and stopped to inspect some of the other dwellings. They actually let you go into some of them. Inside the caves the temperature was about 15 degrees cooler than outside.

The inside was pretty big. Very comfortable and safe from predators.

I had taken some walkie talkies that Maiko and Amy had given us as Christmas presents about three years ago. We always carry them with us when we go hiking. I had never had to use them before other that for very short distances. I had left one with Rojelio and started calling him from about a quarter mile away. He was able to hear me and met us while we were inspecting the dwelling. I talked him into going with us to see the waterfalls. I had read that they were only 1 1/2 miles from the visitors center. It looked easy on the map. He took my walking stick and set out with us to see the big water falls that the brochure showed. Well, it was a mile and a half but it was all climbing and the trail got pretty rugged. Rojelio decided the water fall wasn't worth the long climb and turned back to the visitor center. We found the first water fall about 100 yard from where Roje had turned back. I called him on the radio and told him we had found them. He told me to take a picture and he would look at them later.

Ok, see the disappointed look on Elfida's face... and look behind her, you may make out the water fall. Not very impressive. Well, we decided that we would walk the next half mile to the second water fall. We had talked to some hikers coming back and they said the trail got harder but the second water fall was better that the first one.
That is what the trail looked like. You definitely needed hiking boots for this and the walking sticks really came in handy. No railing and the drop off was about 150 feet. In some parts the trail was only about two feet wide. Storm clouds were just beyond our view and we would hear the loud thunder but we were determined to see the water fall and make it to the Rio Grande which is where this arroyo emptied into.

We made it to the second water fall and by now we had eaten every snack we had. Our camel backs were down to about a quarter full. We were out of the shadows of the canyon walls and that sun was hot!! The water fall was right next to this rocks but you couldn't see it from here. You had to hike down another 100 yard.
While Dora, and Elfida rested and Sam explored the area, I went down to take picture of them and the water fall. This one was bigger and you can actually see it pretty clear. It's no Niagara Falls but it was cool.
We climbed down all the way to the base of the canyon and found that the river, creek, arroyo, what ever you want to call it, goes underground from the fall to the Rio Grande. Well we were tired and from there decided we had seen the Rio Grande before, so we turned back around. Two hiker told us that it was another half mile to there Rio Grande. Sam was running around like a mountain goat. He said he felt great and wasn't tired at all. He wanted to hike another 10 miles.

Elfida had a different idea. She was ready to head back to the truck. Climbing out of the canyon really zapped us of what energy we had left. We were taking breaks about every quarter mile. Sam was way ahead of us and would stop every so ofter to let us catch up. About half a mile from the truck I was able to talk to Roje over the walkie talkies. I was impressed. The canyon is not straight and there are lots of trees. Those little radios have some excellent transmitting power.

We found a Furr's Cafeteria, Roje can locate one by instinct, and ate there. After all the hiking and sightseeing, we were ready for a buffet!! Oh yeah, we had that waitress running back and forth with plates of food. At Furr's you get your first plate of food and then the waitress bring you what ever else you want. I found out that all their cakes, cookies, jello, etc. are sugar free!! Okay, Elfida didn't believe me either but it was too late. I ate all of those goodies!!! I do remember going to the swimming pool and sitting in the Jacuzzi for a couple of hours while our bodies recovered. When we made it to the room we looked at the photos I had transferred to my laptop. Sam was more tired than he thought and fell asleep before any one else, so I took a picture. : ) Uhhh... he looks so cute with his mouth open... hee, hee, hee...

TO BE CONTINUED....