7/9/2018 EDIT: Link to pics HERE:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/membe...ew-mexico.html
I'm hoping this post is epic, because we had a great time.
We left our metro Denver home early Saturday afternoon and headed south. I checked to see what there was to do in the area before we left (I consulted the above posts, mostly
), and made an informal itinerary in my head. We are chronically late in most plans we make, especially if we are informal, but we did ok.
We pulled off the freeway in Trinidad, and parked at the Las Animas County Courthouse
, thinking it was close to the Mitchell Museum Gallery, made it down to Main Street and saw
, a car completely decorated out of dental, ahem, accessories.
It turns out we stumbled into Artocade, a car show featuring numerous decorated cars. Cool stuff.
We visited the Mitchell gallery, and had a good time. Bought some coasters with his work on them.
Trinidad's downtown strip was very nice, and still has tons of potential. What's sad, is that there are a lot of vacant offices, buildings, motels, you name it, all in and around downtown Trinidad. It's like the place time forgot to remember. Even the Fox theater was closed. Other than that, we came away with a very positive impression of the town.
We headed south
to Raton. We checked into the Raton Pass Inn (I refuse to sleep in chains if the travel is non-essential), a nice little place at the top of the hill.
The innkeeper recommended we dine at a place called Rincon Norteña, a new Mexican (not New Mexican) place in Raton. My wife loved her fajitas, however, I felt like my burrito was filled with Rosarita beans, and had a tortilla that was too crunchy. The chips were good, but the green chile was not (I usually find green chile to be gross, so if it I didn't like it, most would probably consider it good).
If Trinidad is economically depressed, Raton is even more so. Raton almost makes Trinidad look like a boom town. Unlike Trinidad, Raton also has the schizophrenic landscape thing that the Front Range is well known for (pretty in certain directions, not so much in others). I still liked it though.
We caught a flick at El Raton
which is miles away from the Chicago theater, both literally and figuratively. However, this trip was more for the theater as opposed to the mediocre flick itself. El Raton is a very nice theater, aside from the lack of alcohol (which isn't necessarily a pro for me anyway), it blows Denver's Mayan completely out of the water. I will go back.
We went home to the motel, watched some Albuquerque news, my wife conked out, I fought my demons, and went to sleep.
We woke up
and had Continental Breakfast with the innkeeper. We talked a lot about Raton, the surrounding area, and our travels. We gassed up, and drove out to Capulin.
We headed down Capulin, and north through the NE New Mexico countryside.
This horse couldn't take his eyes off us.
We crossed back into "home"
and went through
We didn't stop or anything, but it did appear most everybody was at church.
The landscape changed dramatically upon entering Colorado. Mostly flat, less in the way of hills and mountains, with most major geographical features far off in the distance. There was a mesa out east of Branson, but the rest of the drive back to Trinidad was mostly typical Eastern Colorado.
We goofed around Trinidad a bit, saw more of the blight, and looked for our future weekend home.
We were originally going to take CO-12 the whole loop, but some "convenient" map at the Colorado Welcome Center showed a road from Aguilar to Cuchara. We didn't want to have to backtrack to Aguilar, as Aguilar was a very important part of the trip, considering we share a namesake. We decided we'd be going back to Trinidad at some point anyway, so we could see Trinidad Lake and points westward at a later date.
My wife convinced me to stop at the Catholic cemetery in Aguilar (FYI, it is full of cactus) just in case we found something. We found several Aguilar's, including the town's founder, but any relation we possibly have is likely extremely distant, as my family came from Mexico about 25 years after the town was founded.
Aguilar itself had not much more than a school, bar, market, restaurant, auto repair shop, and a city park. It came off as pretty poor. The restaurant and bar seemed busy, as the Broncos game was about to start.
Heading west of Aguilar towards Gulnare, and beyond to Cordova Pass, the landscape slowly progresses from rolling hills, to patchy forest, to full on forest and insanely beautiful peek-a-boos of the Spanish Peaks. Paradise in the flesh, my friends.
And into the San Isabel National Forest.
OMG
By this point, I'm over it. The drive was so exhausting that I felt like I should have earned a medal for it.
We made it down to the Highway of Legends, and saw the most beautiful stretch of road in the country. I stated that all new car commercials should be filmed there. I couldn't enjoy it because not only was I exhausted, but I was STARVING!
Beyond Cuchara, the landscape mightily descends from drop dead gorgeous, to just kinda ok.
We made it to La Veta, which didn't impress me too much (after everything else we had seen, how could it?
). It was the town where my maternal great-grandfather was born, so at least there's that.
We ate at La Veta Loco (I can't explain how wrong that name is), during the second half of the Broncos game. Same anti-social crowd you can find everywhere else in Colorado. But the pizza was good.
One last look at the peaks
We passed through Walsenburg, and headed home.
We'll be back.....