2000-11-25 - 16:48 MST

November 25, 2000

Questa Ho !

As a child I was used to riding with Mom and Dad to Colorado Springs from Denver on a Sunday. A cement highway, one lane each way, bumper to bumper each way on a Sunday and in the evening everyone scurried back to their place of residence -- so bumper to bumper again. The road was aptly named "Suicide Drive." I loved the ride down there, an area where the plains met the foothills with the mountains looming above. Majestic Pikes's Peak picture perfect as we went south.

My Grand Mother married and moved from her place of work to live with her husband near his work. He had bought property around a bend in the road from Questa, N.M. a tiny town with a store, a boot legger, a bee yard and a few houses. Off to the east were mountains with Carson National Forest -- just to the south was Red River (yeah there are more than one by that name) which flowed into the Rio Grande River nearby. I had pored over the map Grandpa Steve had drawn until I had it pretty well memorized. I discovered he was a pretty good cartographer too.

One Sunday Mom and Dad were talking about going down to see Grandma. My fiddle footed itch to travel drove me up a tree forcing me to keep my mouth shut. Plans were made and well laid, the excitement of going by car to another state made me delirious and peopled my dreams with all the trappers and ranchers my teeny skull could cope with without nightmaring.

We went South on the same highway we used for travel to the Springs, a highway for the most part followed by I-25 today. Still more or less plains on one side and foothills and mountains the other. In those days highways did not bypass towns but went through them with a chance for the traveler to stop and get gas and the thirsted for refreshments. A stop at a new town was for me like a book to read, as I drank my pop and chewed whatever was given me I found a corner and "people watched," strangers wearing strange clothes and Stetson hats and women wearing clothes that were different than in my town -- and making them characters in the stories I was building and storing in my sparkin' mind.

We finally reached Walsenburg, an old town in coal mine country and ate at the "Alpine Rose" cafe, which became a traditional stop from there on, good food and nice people.

Then after stoking up we headed in a more or less westerly direction. I was seeing country new and absorbing to me. We passed near the Spanish Peaks and saw what looked like stone walls south of the highway. In high school I learned that those were dikes, lava which would cool and be harder than the cracks in the bed rock it was forced through, the softer terrain over centuries eroding and leaving the walls standing. That was an exciting first for me.

We went over La Veta Pass, at that time it was a gentle winding road, in our time now almost a straight through gentle rise and descent. We entered the San Luis valley of fable and fame. It was different, mostly the same yet new territory to me.

At Fort Garland we headed south through the arid country until we came to San Luis which was another old pioneer town with old, old buildings and then headed southerly again through Garcia the last tiny town before we crossed the state line into New Mexico we had been seeing adobe buildings along the way for quite awhile. Plenty of barbed wire fences -- never figured out whether they were to keep the non-existent cattle in or keep out the one or two weary travelers who just wanted a town, any town where they could coffee up and fill their tanks. then we passed through a town called Costilla just over the state line in New Mexico, it doesn't show on present day road maps. We were in the land that was later the site of the Milagro Bean Field War written by Nichol I think. Most of the San Luis Valley is old Spanish Land Grant country, still being fought over today. Where water could be obtained the land was fertile but dry and dusty on top. Off to the west the Rio Grande had worn its way into a gorge on its downward trip to the Gulf of Mexico.

We went through Questa and around the bend to the adobe house Grandma and Grandpa built. I was in the house long enough to eat and sleep but was out being the fearless explorer and curious boy. I chased lizards, scared rabbits as I ran downhill jumping cedar brush into town where the bee keeper lived. He was a friend of Grandpa and I was welcomed to his territory, instructed and allowed to follow while he worked among the hives. Man it was cool being in the midst of all those bees safely and watching him do his work. Eventually though the bad was had, one of my pant legs came out of the sock it was tucked in. One invading bee started crawling up from my ankle. I stayed quiet as long as I could, but when he neared precious territory I beserked and slapped at it. I realized the major boo boo I had committed and immediately jump started the flight mechanism and flew down the hill and into his house, slammed the door and watched a raging tide of bees wash up against the window of his back door.

On my forays into town a stop at the store was on my list always, candy being an important necessity for me. Real's store was kind of like a hispanic country store.

While we were there Grandpa bought shells for his 410 shotgun and took me out in the evening to a place on the prairie near a deserted and vanished town once called Sunshine, if I remember correctly he said that the Federal Government tried to start a town there and put in city people to learn to become farmers. His old Ford's windshield would crank out from the bottom and I would shoot rabbits from the car. He used them to mix with other things to make food for the trout in his ponds. Good things happened so fast, my mind couldn't keep up. All along I saw cattle and horses, and listened through the open window at night to the men on the road home singing as they rode their horses, with the sound of the clopping hooves of the horses keeping a percussive rhythm.

We went over to Taos to see all the sights there, including the Taos Pueblos. I think that Georgia O'Keefe lived near there once. I bought some of the gimcrack stuff a kid would like, and managed to wear it out or break it before we left. Grandma gave me a real wool serape wich lasted well into our child raising days when so much had been spilled on it that it couldn't be cleaned any more.

They had Kerosene mantle lamps at their house and I still remember the soft, goldish glow in her house and the smell of kerosene. I also watched Grandpa Steve fight with the lamps, cussing and cleaning something called the generator ? and burning in new mantles on the refurbished lamps.

So, the journey paused for a week or several days there while I watched the gorgeous dusk and sunsets and gained an appreciation of the artistry of God. I saw colors there that I haven't seen since -- pollution I guess colors the air drab.

I wasn't thrown into the car when it came time to go, but the leave taking was stretched to the breaking point before Dad finally drove off. As it was new country to me, going back home and seeing stuff from the south going north was a whole new country too. From Colorado Springs north was okay but a bit boring after a short stay in the Land Of Enchantment.

From then on I would talk up a trip down to see Grandma and talk up to the folks Questa Ho ! . . . . .

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