Day 13 – Roaming the Colorado High Country

One of our best days so far, nearly getting to sleep in a real hogan with buffalo right outside and getting to cruise through amazing mountain vistas all day. My friend Patrick asked why we went halfway across the country when we have such good riding right in our own back yard. Well I guess you dont realize what you take for granted until you have to do without.

Colorado Highway of Legends Scenic Byway is spectacular. I highly recommend it if you want to spend several hours going through switchbacks, along mountain lakes and through some of the best scenery we’d seen during the entire trip thus far instead of taking the 1/2 hour by Interstate to get to the same place.

Cuchara is at about the halfway point, it sort of reminds me of Cloudcroft or Timberon, New Mexico except with less paved streets if thats possible. I love all the log cabins and rough sawn timbers with bark still on them they use for siding. It’s a mountain mans town, my kind of place, way out there. Not too far distance wise but takes a long time to get there no matter which way you go.

Now that we were starting to get up in altitude the V Star was running great. The bike was running much cooler, quieter and smoother and also had a bit more power too, she really felt in her element up in the high country. This is great! Yep, I need to adjust my jetting when we get home. Going up these steep hills through switchbacks and hairpins while hauling both of us and several hundred pounds of gear we were making nearly 50 miles to the gallon, better than we’ve done the whole trip. Good thing too, gas sure is expensive in these isolated mountain towns.

We coasted into Ft. Garland on fumes and decided to check out the old frontier fort while we were there. They were doing an archaeological dig across the street, pretty neat. I don’t remember how much it was now but the entrance fee into the fort was pretty steep so we pretty much just checked out the several rooms of the gift shop and the couple of artifacts and bits of info they had in there and left. Shame because the grounds looked well kept. It didn’t look like they would have had much more than we’d already seen in all the other museums and I wasn’t going to pay over $25 for both of us to get in and only stay a half hour.

Like Ft. Stanton back home this was one of the frontier forts where the Buffalo Soldiers were stationed.

I wasnt aware of Ft. Garland’s role in the Battle of Glorieta Pass. They reinforced the volunteers who are always mentioned in the story to defeat the Confederate’s attempted invasion of the West.

After the disappiontment with the old fort we went down the street and discovered this living heritage ranch place. The tours were free and they had many interesting historical building reconstructions including a pit house which I had just learned about before we left. The pit houses were what the Anasazi lived in before moving into the cliff dwellings for better protection. They had only just been thoroughly researched because they are notoriously hard to find examples of. After they are abandoned and the roof collapses it basically burries itself leaving no trace that anything was there.

The people there were in period costume and did a recreation of an actual gunfight for us. First they explained what happened in the quick fight (I hope I’m remembering this right), 2 guys get into a scuffle with Bill Cody, guns are drawn and he kills both of them. Cody’s friend runs out from around a building behind him for help and he turns around and shoots his friend too. Oops! Then they act it out to show how fast thing actually would have happened. Pretty cool.

Unfortunately I dont remember the name of the place, but Ft. Garland is fairly small and its right off the main highway I’m sure you’ll find it. If you’re ever in the area and interested in these type of things check it out, its well worth it.

The head guy really liked Cece and gave us a personalized tour of everything explaining everything in detail. How items were used, explaining the significance of this and that. Very interesting. We were surprised when he asked if Cece was Navajo. He had worked quite a bit with Navajos out on the reservation and thats how he learned how to build the native dwellings and several groups of them have come up to see his place.

Hopefully this bison is close enough for her camera to photograph heh, not like the one back on day 1. That seems like ages ago now.

Our guide explained that Hogan meant many legs, and that traditional hogans were built posts vertically into the ground. After the Spanish came and taught the Navajo that stacking the beams horizontally was much faster and easier not many hogans have been built in the traditional way and few examples still exist.

Inside Cece said the slightly musky odors really reminded her of living in one when she was little. The guy said all of the buildings on the site had been constructed in the traditional ways they would have been during the period as accurate as possible to help preserve the building style and the knowledge of how they were made. So this hogan was accurate right down to the bentonite (clay), animal fat and ox blood floor. The lumpy floor had a bit of a sticky texture. Our guide explained that it was a result of our hard soled boots and tread on the bottom of our shoes. If everyone had been wearing moccasins like the Navajo would have been 100’s of years ago then the floor would have become harder and highly polished like marble.

We were told that the Navajo were the first Native Americans who slept in raised beds off the ground and inside were stout cots along the walls lined with animal furs and woven blankets. They looked very warm and comfortable. The guy said they sometimes let people stay in there over night and to come back any time with sleeping bags any time we wanted to. When I explained we were already fully equipped for camping he said just come back after closing and we could stay in there for free! Just one condition, we had to stay inside all night because they kept guard dogs out after hours with all the antique guns and equipment.

How cool is that? Getting to sleep in a traditional hogan on animal skins with a buffalo right outside, and for free! Not many people could say that they’ve done that.

We went back into town and got some lunch at a Italian place and discussed our options. We could continue on and be very rushed to get to Navajo Lake before dark but go through Pagosa Springs and Wolf Creek Pass by motorcycle that I was really looking forward to the whole trip or we could stay here and have a once in a life time experience sleeping in a traditional hogan.

Cece was eating some manderan chicken salad with mini oranges in it. Well she got sick from the citric acid and suddenly neither option was going to work. Theres no way she could make it all the way to the camp ground on the bike all day and she couldn’t stay inside the Hogan all night without bathroom breaks. 🙁 She thought she could make it to Alamosa, so we kept going at an easy pace to find a motel and take the afternoon off.

Above and below is their example of what I think they called a Railroad Two Tie Office, see below because its two ties wide. The railroads supplied the building supplies for marshals offices along the frontier in exchange for watching supplies till they could be picked up and protection. The ties make very fortified buildings, bullet proof and fire resistant, this one had a small jail cell on one side also. When the trains were going through some remote outposts they’d just leave supplies on the side of the tracks and the owners would eventually come to pick it up. This is a perfect opportunity for thieves to make off with some free goods. It was these marshals job mostly to watch over these drop offs until the rightful owners picked them up.

The young guy above would have been our neighbor for the night. He locks himself up in the fortified building and spends the night in the bunk beds in the jail cell to protect their collection of rare and antique guns while the dogs patrol outside. I’m guessing some of those are loaded with real bullets.

Everyone really liked Cece, too bad we didn’t get to stay. Maybe next time!

In Alamosa we went through awful road construction. The town consists of a few intersections of main highways, so of course while they are working on one arm on one side of town it makes sense to completely shut down traffic on every other road for an hour at a time in every direction.

This is another time where having the EeePC with Microsoft Streets and Trips loaded on it was invaluable. We eventually made it to a gas station and Cece took a much needed break with a cool drink and watched the worst gridlock ever outside. On my mini net book I was able to bring up a map of Alamosa with every motel in town marked, awesome! I got a wireless signal from the gas station and was able to check out the websites of some of the motels to see which had hot tubs or pools. It also lists phone numbers for most of them so I could have called around from the comfort of an air conditioned food court for a room. In hind sight I really should have done that.

When we were recovered some and decided to brave the snarled traffic once again we found out that every freaking motel in the entire town was sold out. WTF? Alamosa had really swelled in size since I last went through there 10 years ago and there was new motel after motel after motel on the half of town that didnt even exist a few years back every single one was sold out. The Holiday Express had some rooms free, the cheapest of which was $170 a night, Ouch! I finally asked the lady there what was going on. “Oh its always very busy this time of year, the dunes and Cumbres railroads are huge tourist draws.” Are you kidding me? There was lots of big new motels, so 1000’s of people come to see sand dunes? I don’t think so.

One last try, we went to a Best Western which had 1 room open up for $68 with my AAA discount. Much better, and they told me every place had been sold out for months because of a rodeo and concert series going on in town and that I was lucky to get a room at all. Thats much more believable than everyone coming to see sand. Cece took a long hot bath and then slept the entire afternoon while I watched some new episodes of Stargate Atlantis and Legend of the Seeker that I’d missed during out trip. Not quite as exciting as sleeping in a hogan with buffalo outside but more relaxing.