Sunday, August 17, 2008
Lathrop State Park, Walsenburg, CO: July 13-14
We have stayed here twice before: Aug 2004 & July 2006. The park is clean & well-maintained, there are lots of sites with electric, and it is conveniently located between Chaco & Boulder. We bought our annual Aspen Leaf pass (only available to Colorado seniors), which makes staying in the CO state parks quite affordable. It's one of several benefits to remaining a CO resident.
There is a scenic road, the Highway of Legends, that starts not far from here which we had read about numerous times & finally decided to take, figuring gas will never be any cheaper so we may as well "go for it"! The Spanish Peaks are home to numerous rock walls known as radial dikes, and the "Legends" are mostly Native American explanations for their existence. You pass by scores of these dikes on the 70-mile drive that terminates at Trinidad, CO. The first town along the scenic highway is La Veta, where we have stayed in the past. We had found the area lovely but the town somewhat run-down, with lots of businesses for sale. We were happy to see that this was no longer the case, with several newly refurbished campgrounds open and many businesses thriving along the main street. 
About 20 miles on down the road is the charming little town of Cuchara, which we stopped at long enough to look around and regret that we were there too early for lunch. Less than ten miles farther we saw a national forest road heading up to a campground. We always like to check out new campgrounds, and started up the road, which is every bit as bumpy as the Chaco road. After a couple of miles of having our bones rattled & our teeth jarred, we heard a scraping sound, & upon stopping discovered our tailpipe dragging behind the truck. We stood around for less than 60 seconds scratching our heads and wondering what to do when a truck drove by in the opposite direction and the driver stopped to see if he could be of any help. 
He initially didn't think so but quickly remembered that he had a spool of thin brass wire. We wrapped that around the tailpipe a few times & secured it to the truck frame and, since none of us knew the melting point of brass, decided to head back to Cuchara, which has fewer than 1000 people, but does have a General Store. We thought they might carry baling wire or something similar, but such no luck, until Willie said "or even a coat hanger" to which the woman relied, "You know, it's a funny thing but I found an old coat hanger in the parking lot this morning" which she proceeded to pull from the trash, and which turned out to be perfect for tying the tailpipe securely onto the frame. Since it was now late enough for lunch, we got our other wish and ate at Big Dog Pizza, which was excellent -- well worth the 20-mile detour off of US160 even if the scenery weren't drop-dead gorgeous. After lunch, we found a couple more coat hangers at an historic inn, so the tailpipe was even more securely attached.We continued around the Highway of Legends, stopping by several lakes, but avoiding any more bumpy dirt roads; also stopping at the tiny town of Stonewall, named for the very large stone dike that ends right at the edge of town. The town even has a small RV park and general store/gift shop. The interesting part of the drive ended in Trinidad, where we got somewhat turned around causing us to drive right through the center of the historic downtown area. Since it was after 4, we decided we were too tired to get out and roam around, but we have filed this area in our memory as a place to return to another time. It had lots of interesting-looking shops and attractive parks.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 9:12 PM 
