Confluence Park, Delta Colorado (Ridgway: for sale, construction, cost of)

[jim9251]

Spent some time wandering around Confluence Park in Delta yesterday while visiting my sisters. What a nice park Delta has, there's a rec center too that a lot of townsfolk use, a nice safe walking trail, Ute Council Pow Wow, and Fort Uncompahgre. Hundreds of geese where in the lake and flying in. I wanted to see Fort Uncompahgre but it (like most things here) is closed in winter.





This is closed in winter and is close as I could get without setting off alarms.

http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/6875/011lsd.jpg (broken link)






The rec center
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/1316/016bw.jpg (broken link)







That's Grand Mesa, the world's largest flat top mountain in the distance.







Geese in the lake


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqplbCjXaHc

[JERSEY MAN]

Jim thanks for taking the time and posting the great shots. Us folks from back east love to view photos from the mountain states. I followed your whole journey for your first year out there. Enjoy your retirement, I'm in the same profession. Thanks again. JM

[jazzlover]

Here's the interesting story about the park and rec center. The park was built in an area reclaimed from a sugar beet dump for the closed sugar beet factory and from the old city sewer ponds. Part of the cost of the park was paid for by the selling of the gravel in the areas excavated for the lakes.

Fort Uncompahgre is also a place where one can observe some of the most historically accurate, non-sanitized versions of true mountain man and trading post life--at least this was still true the last time I visited a few years ago. They trapped and skinned animals (and ate some), shot real black powder guns (not blanks), and carried authentic recreations of frontier paraphernalia for sale. The mountain men who worked the fort dressed authentically, right down to the real "long knives" they carried. Some parents might find the fort almost too authentic and "R" rated for children, but it's a great educational experience to understand the full history of the trapper era, albeit some of it pretty unsavory--like trading of women slaves and the like.

As for the rec center, part of its cost was funded quite unusually. Shortly before its construction, during the period right when the first Gulf War was getting underway, a motorcade carrying the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States was scheduled to pass through Delta en route from somewhere to somewhere. The Delta civic leaders heard about this and asked that a large contingent of townspeople line Main Street at the scheduled time to show support for the Kuwaiti allies. Several blocks of the small town were lined with local citizens waving both American and Kuwaiti flags when the motorcade passed through town. The Kuwaiti Ambassador was so impressed with the public outpouring of support in such a small, isolated American town that, as a result, the Kuwaiti government donated $100,000 to the building of the rec center. And, as they say, that is the rest of the story.

[jim9251]

Thank you jazz, I didn't know that. I will sure go back to the fort next summer when it's open. It surprised me (ok not really) how many people in Delta don't know that fort is even there or have never been to it. That is just a very neat park.

[brightdoglover]

Maybe I'll be able to visit it when I come to Ridgway next July!